Generation Lost: A Life From District Five
by SongofFete
Summary: Katniss once said that the children of victors were reaped too often for it to be just a coincidence. In District Five, Cyra Luned knows all about coincidences, because her mother died in the Hunger Games when she was just five months old. This is her story.
1. Chapter 1

My name is Cyra Luned and I am from District Five. I live with my grandparents. My father lives in the same apartment block, three storeys up, and I see him as often as we dare. I never knew my mother.

She died in the 37th Hunger games, though few people know I am her daughter. I knew from an early age that it wasn't something we talked about, long before I understood the reasons why.

When my mother was reaped, she was eighteen and I was five months old. My parents had married on her eighteenth birthday, when she was just beginning to show, but that didn't stop her name from being entered into the games twenty five times the following summer. The peacekeepers didn't know, and there wasn't really a precedent for married women to be excused from the reaping. She might not have been the first married woman in the hunger games. She might not even have been the first parent. But those things weren't talked about, because it wasn't safe.

So I knew her through a few photographs and drawings, my father and grandparents' memories, and recaps of the Hunger Games. It's hard to grow up knowing how your mother died. It's worse when you know the face of the man responsible, even if he was just a boy then.

Felix Lothair was the other District 5 tribute that year. He was sixteen at the time, and he won. He left my mother to die, and I hate him. Thankfully he isn't the district five mentor. Since the games began, we have had two male victors; one female - Hardie Rollo. She won the second Hunger Games when she was seventeen, which makes her nearly seventy now. Spens Algirdas won the first quarter quell. Nobody likes him much; he was chosen by our citizens because he'd been stealing since he was twelve. I don't think anyone really wanted him to come back, but he did. Every year he glares at us from the stage like he's daring anyone to say a word against him.

I have never watched the Hunger Games. I know the rules, of course. I know what happens, because they are compulsory viewing across all of Panem. Each year I watch the reapings and the interviews, because I need at least a rudimentary knowledge of what's happening, a handful of names to mention if anyone asks. I know when our district tributes have died and am subdued in class the next day. But I don't watch.

Our television is on, but we all turn our backs. For my mother's sake, it is all we can do. For the rest of the year, life goes on as normal. It's hard; my grandparents work full time in the power plant closest to our home; my father works two miles away, but he's a factory foreman and earns enough that I have never had to sign up for tesserae. I don't think they would have let me anyway, even if the alternative was that we all starved. At least we would die together that way.

When I turned fourteen I started work at the power plant after school. I worked alongside my grandmother for four hours a day, and my life changed. No longer could I wander the streets in the evenings, watching other peoples' lives and despite my red hair somehow manage to melt into the shadows so I was almost never seen. I missed my nocturnal wanderings, but on the upside, I'm earning my own living now, not enough to support myself, but enough that we can feed ourselves and even manage to save up for a few luxuries like fruit and coffee on our birthdays.

I'm privileged, and I know it. Even in the leanest times, my grandmother has a knack of being able to make a meal out of almost nothing. We're reasonably happy, apart from that one day in the year when I have to stand corralled with my friends and pray that it's one of them who gets chosen to die instead of me. Without having to take out tesserae, the odds are in my favour. In my sixteenth year, my name is in the reaping ball just five times. Some people have six or eight times that number, and they are safe. But not me. I am reaped, and as I walk towards the platform on shaky legs, I see something that makes my blood turn to ice.

Instead of Algirdas leering down from the boys' side of the platform, there is a new mentor. My mother's betrayer now stands in pride of place. I freeze, and a peacekeeper has to push me forward. I go, forcing my legs to move though I can't feel them; knowing that my family are watching. Knowing that to show weakness at this stage is as good as admitting a death wish. District Five hasn't had a female victor in fifty years. I say my name into the microphone defiantly, staring out at my friends who are safe for another year, thanks to me.

Leno Bright is chosen for the boys. I barely know him; he's not quite fifteen, small and blonde; and he hides his terror well. His mother screams in despair as he walks forward. When we shake hands, I manage what I hope is a reassuring smile. Then we are taken away, our families come in to say goodbye, and I have to lie. I have to promise my grandparents that I will come back to them; to tell my father that I will come home. None of us are fooled. My grandmother gives me a silver bracelet and, when my hands are shaking too much to accept, she fastens it around my wrist.

I'm escorted onto the train and Hardie Rollo is waiting for me. She looks ancient, far older than her 67 years, but she pulls me into a hug. Before I can protest, she whispers into my ear "Be as brave as your mother" and I know she's recognised me. I step back, and a tear finally spills onto my cheek. She wipes it away and leads me to what will be my room on the journey to the capitol.

I don't emerge during the journey. Food is brought to my room. Hardie comes to see me briefly, but

I barely react. I'm holding too much inside. She thinks I'm just frightened. I let her go on thinking that as I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall, ignoring the fine Capitol clothes. She doesn't know that I dare not risk encountering Felix for fear that I'll try to kill him.

I must be convincing, because Leno comes into my room. He tells me he's scared as well, but that we need to be strong and look good so we can get sponsors. I force a smile, because he's younger than me, he must know we're both going to die, poor kid, and he's still trying to make me feel better. So I ask him to help me pick out an outfit and I venture out as we approach the capitol. We look out of the window and wave, grins frozen like a death rictus on our faces.

I'm scrubbed and brushed and waxed until I think I'm not going to recognise myself, and then my stylist dresses me in a metallic grey sheath dress with sparkling lights. It's not bad actually. Leno's wearing something similar, and grey horses pull our chariot. We paint those wide, fake grins on our faces and wave at the screaming crowd. I try to block them out and more importantly, I block out thoughts of my mother being in this position sixteen years earlier.

I'm exhausted after the ceremony. I barely notice the other tributes, except that most of them are bigger than me. There's a thirteen year old from district 9, and a boy from 3 who looks ten but is apparently 14, but apart from that...

I crawl into bed, mind reeling and convinced that I'll never sleep. The next thing I know is bright sunlight streaming through my window and Volumnia Vipointe trilling that I need to be up and ready for training. I'm terrified all over again, but more in control of myself this morning. Thankfully Hardie sits between me and Leno and is full of advice. We're to try out all the survival stations on the first day and avoid the weapons; keep our heads up and not look frightened, and keep our eyes open for anyone we might want to form an alliance with. My head jerks up in surprise.

"I thought only the careers..."

"Anyone'd think you've never watched the games, girl" she mutters, and I flush red because it's a bit too close to the truth. "The Careers always form an alliance, but that's not to say you can't as well. Watch out for anyone who can do things you can't. If they can recognise plants and you can start a fire, maybe they'll want to join you. Up to you if you let them, of course. Let me know if you see anyone." Hardie makes it sound as if we have a choice, and for the first time I realise that we do. It may only be a choice of how bravely we die, but it's a choice nonetheless.

Belatedly, I realise we haven't seen Felix since the reaping, but decide that can only be a good thing. We ride down to the training area in the elevator with Volumnia, not speaking, staring at the floor. As we reach the ground floor, Leno glances across to me.

"Wanna be in an alliance?"

I manage to grin back. "Sure," I say, trying not to think about the fact that in a few days we'll both likely be dead.

Leno heads for the camouflage station, I go for plants. I find myself with the girl from 9. She seems sweet, and I feel oddly protective of her, but I know better than to ally with a thirteen year old. Besides, she hasn't a clue about the plants, while I manage to get an 88% success rate on edible versus poisonous. I decide to ignore the fact that anything less than 100% in the arena will likely lead to my death, and feel slightly pleased with myself.

I switch to fire starting and Leno tries to make a snare. I keep sneaking glances at what he's doing, trying to learn different skills because if we manage to meet up in the arena, we'll have covered twice as much ground in training. We can compare notes later. I find it fairly easy to start a fire , though I need to use matches. The instructor says she'll show me how to start one from scratch later, and I manage to smile.

At lunchtime, Leno is leading a short, stocky girl over to our small table.

"This is Vila. She's from district 6" he says. I look up and nod, giving her a small smile - a genuine one this time - and a hello. She says hello back, and we eat in silence, as if none if us are sure what to say. In a short time though, we all put away a surprising quantity of food. When I glance around I see most of the others are sitting alone, except for the careers. They're loud and outwardly cheerful, but one or two of them are glancing in our direction. They don't look friendly.

"We can't eat together again. It'll make us a target for the careers" I say quietly. The others nod. "Did your mentor tell you to look for allies?" I ask Vila.

"Dunno." she replies, her accent strange and her vowels flatter than I'm used to "I didn't see her this morning. She's a morphling." I look confused, then remember my grandmother mentioning something about a drug that dulls severe pain. I force myself to look understanding, but Vila doesn't seem to have noticed. "District six is transport. I'm seventeen. Finished school last year. I can carry a forty kilo rail and work fourteen hours straight" she says, staring downwards.

So she wants to be our ally. That's fine by me. "I'm sixteen. I can sneak anywhere and not be noticed and...I started a fire this morning..." I finish uncertainly, unsure of what else I'm good at. Neither of those things are likely to keep me alive for long, though at the back of my mind it occurs to me that if nobody can find me, they won't be able to kill me. Leno doesn't speak. I assume he's already had this conversation with Vila, and wonder what he told her that his strengths were, though I don't ask. We finish by eating an entire chocolate pudding and a full jug of orange juice between us, as if the meal has sealed our alliance. I decide I feel a bit more confident.

In the afternoon I try snares, and then, ignoring Hardie's advice, I make my way over to the throwing knives. The careers are sparring on the other side of the training centre, so I know I'm relatively safe. To my surprise, my aim is reasonable. I manage to at least hit the target seventeen times out of twenty. The trainer tells me six of these are what he calls a kill shot. I try not to shudder.

Over dinner, we report back to Hardie and tell her we want to ally with Vila. She nods. "Leda's a lousy mentor, but she loves them all like her own" she says, shaking her head. "She's going to be thrilled."

Leno and I retreat to his room.

"You're lucky" he says, not looking at me. I'm surprised.

"What?"

"Hardie. She's your mentor. Felix is meant to be mine but I've hardly seen him. You've got a better chance than me"

I bite back what I'm really thinking and just nod, instead saying "She seems to be doing a good enough job for both of us so far." Then I change the subject, talking about the stations and what we've already tried. Tomorrow we'll be allowed to try out the weapons. We're both nervous, though Leno spotted I'd already tried out the knives. He suggests we avoid spears and any station the careers are using. Having already thought of this myself, I agree and make it seem like it was all his idea, not bothering to mention neither of us would be able to lift a mace, much less swing it around our heads, anyway. He seems fairly cheerful when I leave, which makes me feel sad. He's a nice kid, and he tells me his birthday is just two days away. His Mum gave him a scarf that she'd made for his birthday present as his district token.

"I haven't worn it yet. Wouldn't be right to have my present before my birthday" he tells me seriously. I can't answer through the lump in my throat.

There's no sign of Felix again the next morning. Leno tells Hardie we want to try some weapons today, and she agrees with a smile. I get the feeling that our district doesn't often try very hard at this stage, and realise how hard it must be for her to mentor two kids for a week each year who just end up dying in the bloodbath. She must know we've got hardly any chance against the muscular, well trained eighteen year olds we'll be up against in a few days, but something inside me refuses to give up.

The hand-to-hand combat station is empty. I glance at Leno. "Might as well try our luck" I say.

"Together?"

"Why not? All the other weapons stations are occupied."

He's better at it than I am, though we're only allowed to spar with trainers, rather than each other. The Capitol couldn't risk one of us actually getting injured before they threw us into the arena. We go at it all morning, and I concentrate on defence and blocking attacks rather than attempting to cause damage, because I'm too small to be much good at that. We make sure we eat alone, but in the afternoon, when I go to try out the climbing wall, I find a boy next to me. He's got muddy brown eyes and a scar on his upper lip which looks more obvious when he smiles.

"You talked to Vila."

"You're district six?"

"Yeah. I'm Arcturus. Can I join your alliance? I learned traps yesterday."

That's all he says. I get the impression he doesn't like talking much, like me, and wonder how he got the scar. But he's also a much better climber than I am, which could come in useful if we end up in an arena with a forest. And if there are four of us, there's a chance that we'll manage to get some sleep and not be crept up on. I make my decision.

"Okay. See you in the arena. Tell Vila I said hi."

I feel somehow more positive at dinner that night. Four of us working together - at least to begin with - makes me feel more confident about my chances of surviving the first day than if I was just thrown into the arena alone. We tell Hardie over a dinner that lasts nearly two hours, with neither of us wanting to stop eating caramel-covered mango slices. Our mentor nods in approval, her eyes closed. I feel a bit let down by her lack of enthusiasm.

She's not there the next morning. My heart sinks and at the same time seems to rush up into my throat, blocking my airway, as I see Felix standing by the table, looking uncomfortable and awkward. Leno is already eating breakfast, but I can see he looks worried. I look at Felix and his eyes meet mine, and instantly I know that HE knows. He knows who I am, and he doesn't even have the grace to look ashamed. Suddenly I am overwhelmed by a rage I didn't know I had in me, and before I can even think I am running, leaping at him, nails outstretched at his eyes

"You let her die! You let her die! You le..!" I'm pulled off by our escort and Leno, who is also screaming

"She's not dead! She's in the hospital but they say she's going to be okay! It's gonna be okay, Cyra..."

It doesn't make any sense, and then I slowly realise he must be talking about Hardie. That I think she's the one who's dead. I stop fighting to get free, trembling. My hands shake and I turn them over slowly. There's blood under my fingernails.

"She'll be fine, but she's not allowed visitors. I already asked. She told me to mentor both of you now.." I look up unwillingly. There's blood on Felix's face, scratches down both his cheeks that I've put there. He surely knows why, but he's not saying anything. Probably because he doesn't want anyone else to know. I suppress a shudder, suddenly convinced he'll try and keep Leno alive in the arena, but not me. I'm even more glad of district six now. Right on cue, as if he'd heard me, Leno says

"Did she tell you about our alliance? With Vila and Arcturus from six?"

He nods, grabs a serviette from the table and dabs at the cuts on his face as he sits back down. "I already spoke to their mentors...tried to anyway." He doesn't look at me "So this afternoon you get your private session with the gamemakers. You get fifteen minutes to show them what you can do. I don't need to know what that is if you don't want to say, though it'll help with sponsors if you get a reasonable score. Just don't count yourselves out because you're not careers, okay?"

I manage a nod, but no breakfast. I feel too sick.

"She's gonna be okay, really. They said it's something to do with her heart, but they can fix anything in the Capitol. ANYTHING" Leno assures me in the elevator down to the final training session. I wish I had his confidence – or innocence. I try to tell myself it's because he's just a kid, but I'm not much more than a year older than he is. So I force a smile and spend the morning playing with knives and slingshots. Lunch passes in a blur - though at least I'm hungry enough to eat by now - and then we're sitting waiting to be called by the gamemakers. I'm doing my best not to show how nervous I am. Once the girl from district four is called, I know Leno's next, then me.

"See you later. Remember - don't count yourself out just because we're not careers" I say to him when his name's called, loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. He grins and gives me a thumbs up, then waves. I'm surprised to see most of the other tributes either grinning or at least looking more relaxed. I feel a surge of pleasure that I've said the right thing, and decide encouraging them won't do any harm.

"Well why shouldn't it be one of us?" I ask of nobody in particular as I walk out, and decide I mean it.

I start my session with the gamemakers by throwing knives at a dummy. This time I get nine out of ten into the dummy, and four are killshots. Then I start a fire, and finish off by identifying poisonous plants. I don't know how I've done, but I figure it's better than nothing.

I score a six in training and Leno gets a five. Vila and Arcturus get a six and a five as well. Not great, but not bad, and I can tell Volumnia's pleased with us.

We spend the next day preparing for our interviews. How to walk, how to smile, how to answer questions. It's like learning to be someone completely different, and it's made worse because I actually have to be in the same room as Felix. His face looks pretty scratched and I feel a fierce satisfaction, mingled with fear that I'm going to die in the arena. I remind myself that that was always going to happen and at least I've avenged my mother in some small way. I just wish I could tell my grandparents about it.

The interviews are awful and frightening and at the same time I feel proud once they're over. I'm dressed in another silvery grey dress with my hair piled on top of my head. My eyes and lips are silvery grey and I look like some sort of walking metallic statue, but I also feel exotic enough that it gives me a bit of confidence before the cameras. Caesar Flickerman is resplendent with bright orange hair and eyebrows and reminds me of a carnivorous lizard, and I'm relieved that there are only eight people to interview before me. The questions are all much the same whether you're a career or not; how did you get that high training score, what's your favourite thing about the Capitol, who do you miss most back home, are you going to win. I get through it as best I can, feeling more nervous than I've ever even in my life. I almost think I'd rather face all the career tributes together than sit in front of this audience for three minutes and talk about myself. I tell them I miss my grandparents and thank my stylist for the beautiful dress. I say I'd never tasted a mango until four days ago and that alone would be worth coming back for. Caesar asks if I've got any final message and I say that I hope Hardie gets better soon. That gets a big reaction from the audience, and I leave the stage thinking maybe I didn't do too badly.

Leno follows it up by telling the audience that it's his fifteenth birthday, and thanks his Mum for the coarsely-knitted grey scarf that he's wearing round his neck, somehow blending with the rest of his costume. It gets the biggest cheer of the night. I have to bite my lip and look down at my lap so nobody sees the tears in my eyes. The rest of the evening passes in a blur. "Happy birthday" I whisper to Leno as he comes offstage.

"Thanks" he replies with a grin and a look that I don't recognise. We sit through the rest of the interviews and head into the elevator, but it doesn't stop at the fifth floor. "Not tonight" Felix says, and I exchange a glance with Leno, who looks as startled as me. We get up the the sixth floor and the doors open.

"Surprise!" comes the ragged shout. There's a 'Happy Birthday' banner stretched right along the corridor, and both Vila and Arcturus are there, along with their escort and two disturbing figures that must be their mentors. With their yellow, sagging skin and huge hollow eyes, they're a frightening sight at first; but they're smiling and reaching out to hug Leno, and it turns out they've planned this whole thing because they heard it was his birthday and their kids are going to be our allies. I can't help feeling that it's a last happy night for all of us, because we're going to die tomorrow, but at the same time I find myself smiling even though a large part of me wants to cry. And of course the food is brilliant. They've ordered twenty different dishes for us to try, all kinds of meat and fish and fruit that none of us have ever seen before, and a huge chocolate cake with fifteen candles each burning with a different coloured flame.

We eat until none of us can hold anymore, and then play games and chat until surely all the other tributes have gone to bed. Leda, the female mentor, slips away and comes back with something she hands to her male counterpart. My eyes widen as I see him raise a hand to his lips and sigh with pleasure, but I say nothing. A few minutes later I yawn openly and Felix seems to realise how late it is, and tries to usher us out. Vila runs up to Leno and kisses him full on the lips, ignoring everyone else's shocked expressions. Leno blushes redder than the strawberries we'd been gorging ourselves on earlier. Despite what the morning's going to bring, my last thought is relief that we stayed up so late and had a party, and then I fall into an exhausted sleep.

Nonetheless, I'm awake as soon as dawn begins to light my room, my heart racing. I'm terrified that this is the day that I'm going to die, and I can't decide whether I want to go out quickly or whether I'm brave enough to try and stay alive for as long as possible. Because despite my reasonable aim with the knives, I'm afraid it's going to be very different when my target is a living, breathing person.

There's still no sign of Hardie, and when Volumnia comes to escort me to breakfast, I'm already up and dressed, fiddling with my grandmother's bracelet as I pace up and down. When she greets me her voice is somehow softer and more reassuring than it's been before. When we get down to breakfast Leno and Felix are already deep in conversation. I assume Felix is giving some last-minute advice about how to win, and try not to feel angry. It's not Leno's fault, and I feel confident that he won't turn on me once we're in the arena. Once I sit down, they lapse into silence, and I'm in no mood to speak. Volumnia says something to Leno about not forgetting his district token and follows him back to his room. My heart begins beating faster once again as I realise I'm alone with Felix for the first time.

"You're as prepared as you can be" he begins "and I can't do anything more until you actually get into the arena." He gestures to the semi-healed scratches on his face. "You've got guts, and you're not afraid of fighting. You've got a decent chance. I can only bring one of you back, but..." he seems to hesitate "I'll do my best for both of you." For a moment I think he's going to say something more, but he shakes his head slightly and spends the rest of the meal staring at his coffee cup. I don't reply.

My mind is preoccupied and confused on the journey to the arena.

"...or a desert, so finding shelter might be a good idea"

"What?" I'm startled out of my thoughts and realise my stylist's been talking to me. I'd tuned out his high-pitched lisp while he was dressing me in a sleeveless sand-coloured top and matching trousers, with a long-sleeved shirt in the same colour and a brown hooded jacket. My boots are a comfortable dark brown, the kind that feel right even when they're brand new, and I imagine I could walk all day in them. I look down at myself, then back up at him. With his scarlet spiked hair and puce suit he looks like a giant parrot, but he's trying to help.

"Oh. Sorry."

He nods. "It's okay. Desert or savannah is my guess. Water might be hard to find. Your mentor probably said to avoid the cornucopia, but..."

"What?"

"Look around you. Grab anything you can. Anything." He emphasises the last word, and then an alarm sounds. I'm suddenly struck that this might be the last caring voice I ever hear so I fling my arms around him, resisting the temptation to sob. "Hey...hey, it's okay." he tries to sound soothing, just trying to calm me with the tone of his voice, which has risen another couple of semitones. I step away, give him a shaky smile. And then, just as I step into the tube, I say

"My mother died in the Hunger Games. I don't want to end up like her."

I feel a strange sense of satisfaction that for the first time in my life, I've spoken the truth.


	2. Chapter 2

I stand twisting the silver bracelet round and round my wrist as the seconds count down. I want to retreat into myself, forget what's happening, but I force myself to look around, to think.

Everything is scrubland, not far short of being an actual desert. The sky is a pale, insipid blue with a few straggly clouds that are far too high to hold rain. It's hot, not overwhelmingly so, but it's still early, probably a couple of hours before noon, and it's sure to get hotter. Straight ahead of me is the Cornucopia, piled high with weapons and high-tech supplies, with less useful and interesting things further away. Without bothering to think what they are I make a mental note of everything close enough to grab. No matter what it is, if it's close to me, it's mine. Then I look directly ahead, past the cornucopia. Some sort of ruins. They look ancient, but I'm sure they've been created especially for the games. Too far away for me to run for now but I feel sure some of the tributes will head for there so they can hide.

Over to my right is a high slope heading up towards the horizon. It's steep, scattered with boulders and scrubby grasses and I immediately want to run there, get over the horizon and hide. But I suspect that would be almost certain death, because a figure climbing a steep slope would be a target for the spear throwers and archers. Probably even I could pick someone off with a lucky throw of a knife...if I can just get my hands on one, that is. That's when I realise I'm not alone... Arcturus is on the next podium across, and he's staring in my direction. I give him a nod and the briefest of smiles, not daring to actually speak, even if he is my ally, and then I hear the countdown.

 _Nine...Eight...Seven..._

My head whips briefly over my shoulder, the direction I plan to run in. Left and behind me are much the same - a low rise, a few giant cacti, scrubby bushes with thorns and some grasses but mainly sandy soil and rocks. It doesn't look inviting, but that's the way I'm going to go. I turn my head back towards the cornucopia a couple of seconds before the gong sounds, and then I'm moving. I've calculated the distance to the cornucopia as around thirty metres; the closest backpack - quite a small one - almost ten metres away; too far for me to risk if I want to be sure to avoid the bloodbath. Darting off the podium, I'm grabbing things with both hands, my route already planned as my head jerks to my left to make sure I'm not about to be attacked. Our of the corner of my eye I see Arcturus running for the backpack I'd already dismissed as out of reach. Then he shouts, triumphant and eager.

"Let's go!"

I'm already turning to run, but my head whips back in time to see Arcturus running towards me, backpack slung over his arm. I hesitate for a fraction of a second, just long enough to decide that I _will_ wait for him so we can stay together, and then he's hit in the back with a knife. Instinctively I stuff a handful of unknown supplies into a pocket and grab his arm, drag him to his feet and try to get him to run, because it's only a knife, thrown from nearly thirty metres, and how much damage can that do? Then I look into his face as he gets heavier and I realise he's coughing blood, falling to the ground and I can't hold on, and he slips from my grasp and I know he isn't going to make it. I should feel something - anger, sadness - and I should _do_ something, anything that will make his passing easier.

Instead I pull the backpack from his arm and the knife from his back and take off into the wilderness, just in time to avoid the spear that comes flying my way. I'm almost out of range, scrambling up the sandy bank almost bent double as it grazes my calf, scraping a red line of agony that I manage to ignore, to file into the same category as _you left your ally to die now don't think about it._ I know I'm limping but I keep going, determined that now I've made it this far, that I've got supplies of some kind and a weapon, that I'm not going to waste the opportunity. Behind me are screams and cries that seem to get fainter, but I don't look back. I stuff everything except the knife into pockets; that I carry in front of me as if it's poisoned. I can hardly bear to look at the red coating on the blade. But I keep moving, first at a run, then a ragged jog, and finally a slow, staggering walk, until finally I have to stop.

I sink to the ground, trembling, and it's only then that I inspect my - Arcturus's - backpack and the rest of my supplies. I managed to grab a large plastic bag, a full waterskin and a spare t-shirt, as well as a sealed package that looks like it contains some kind of dried fruit. Bizarrely, I find my lips curving into a smile at the sight of them. Then I turn to the backpack. I find a thin blanket, a pair of pliers, a roll of bandages, a package of some sort of dried meat, and a pair of thick gloves. Together with the knife - I suppress a shudder as I see Arcturus's now-dried blood on the blade - I've made a reasonable haul. The backpack is dark green, so at least it won't show up against my surroundings too badly.

Thinking of this makes me look around again. I seem to be completely alone, but I have no idea where I am in relation to the Cornucopia or worse, where Vila and Leno are. I don't even know if they've survived, and this makes me feel something worryingly close to panic for a minute. Then I force myself to think clearly. It's late afternoon, so I should find somewhere safer to rest and recover my energy, and bandage my leg (I'm suddenly very grateful for that backpack). I'll know tonight if they made it and then I can set about finding them tomorrow if...no, I refuse to think about that for now. Instead, now the terror of my flight is less immediate I realise how thirsty I am. I stuff everything except the waterskin into my rucksack and allow myself a single sip of water...and then another, and another, because I'm weak and can't restrain myself. I'm hot and sweaty and grateful that my hair is short and spiky, because at least it isn't getting in my eyes.

My heart leaps into my mouth as I hear a sound, but then I realise it's a cannon. I freeze on the spot and count the blasts. Nine. Fifteen of us left, then. I take a deep breath then stand up, only a little less shaky than before, and head in the direction that the thorns seem to be thickest. It might not be comfortable, but at least I'll be able to hear anyone coming after me.

I find a patch where the bushes are high enough for me to crawl underneath and sit up. I get fairly scratched going in, but I'm confident that there are still easier targets out there for anyone to waste time trying to hunt me down. I eat a piece of dried meat, take a sip of water, eat a piece of fruit, sip of water...and then decide to repeat the whole thing, because the way I see it I've got two options. Either I die of starvation from rationing my supplies, or I eat them now because I could be dead tomorrow anyway. I waste a few drops of water to clean my knife before dealing with my leg. The blood has clotted but the cut's deeper than I hoped. I use another dribble of water to try and clean that before bandaging it and pulling my trouser leg down. The pain eases off to a sharp throbbing but I'm exhausted enough that I wrap myself in my blanket and let my eyes close, knife firmly grasped in my hand.

The Panem anthem wakes me with a start, and I crawl cautiously out of my hiding place because I need to see who's made it, and who hasn't. The first face in the sky is the girl from District 3. I don't think I even spoke to her during training. Then it's Arcturus, smiling down and actually looking proud as if he didn't mind being there, and painful as it is to see, it brings some measure of relief that at least Leno made it. Then both tributes from 7, which means Vila got through the first day as well. I send up a silent hope that they're together and managed to get some useful supplies. Then the boys from 8 and 9, both tributes from 10, and the girl from 12. Her name was Adele, I remember. Then the anthem fades out. I'm about to crawl back into my sanctuary when I hear a faint chime.

A sponsor gift? Already? I unwrap the parachute, staring at the gift in disbelief. It's a single syringe, labelled _morphling_ , and it makes me shudder. Using it would stop the pain from my injury - more than stop it in fact, from what I've heard of this drug - and guarantee me a good night's sleep. I've always hated needles, and I stare at it for a long while, trying to decide whether I can bear the feeling of it entering my skin. Then something far more important occurs to me. Somebody, somewhere, had paid for this. I look up at the sky and whisper "thank you" so my sponsors know I appreciate their efforts, then crawl back into the thorns where nobody can see me clearly. The pain in my leg has eased off a little, and I carefully rewrap the syringe and conceal it in my backpack. Nobody needs to know I didn't use it, because what holds me back isn't a fear of needles but the fear of sleeping deeply - so deeply that I might not notice another tribute coming towards me.

Besides, I can always use it tomorrow, and it feels reassuring to know I've got something like that in my pack. My leg doesn't feel quite so painful as it did when I was walking on it, especially now the heat of the day is dissipating, and maybe tomorrow I'll feel braver. I curl up in the shelter of my thorn bush and drift off to sleep.

I wake up with a start at the sound of a faint chime, my heart racing. Another parachute? That means there's another tribute within earshot. I curse myself for sleeping despite not using the morphling and tense every muscle in my body, willing even my breath to be silent, even as I weigh up my chances of running away. Not good. The temperature dropped during the night and my nose is numb, my hands so cold they barely move. I concentrate on flexing my fingers to restore the circulation. I remain silent, desperately clinging to the hope that nobody's going to think of looking for me in here as the seconds and then minutes tick by. Outside all is silent. More minutes pass and I fancy I can see the parachute, attached to an even smaller parcel than the one last night, lying exactly where the syringe had landed. I creep towards it, sticking myself with thorns again in the process, and reach out a hand just far enough to take it.

A tiny pot of something medicinal-smelling is nestled within the white fabric. I unwrap my bandage and smear it onto my leg. The relief is instant. The throbbing subsides, and I imagine that even the swelling is less. I stare at it for a few minutes, not understanding, before I rewrap my leg. Did they somehow know that I didn't use the morphling? I dismiss this thought - no sponsor likes an ungrateful tribute - but it doesn't make sense. I feel stronger now though, so I have some more of my fruit and meat, another few sips from my water skin which already feels scarily lighter, and crawl out into the hazy dawn light.

I'm alone, I can be fairly sure of that. I pull my rucksack onto my shoulders and take my knife firmly in my hand before trying to decide the direction to take. I don't really want to head back to the cornucopia, but I'm fairly certain Vila and Leno will be looking for me. I decide to head in what I hope is a circular route, around the cornucopia and hope I spot them. It's a long shot, but what other choice do I have?

I walk a hundred metres or so then scratch the number 5, then D2 into the sandy ground, near to another patch of bushes. It's stupid and risky to leave any kind of message, but if my allies see it, at least they're going to know when and where I've been. I decide not to do it again, though. Probably. Then I set off. The movement brings some warmth back to my chilled body and my leg's feeling so much better I can walk almost normally. I take an easy pace, because while it's cold now, I know it's going to get hot soon enough. I've got a vague plan in mind to walk until mid morning and then hide out during the heat of the day, because I need to conserve my water. There are a few clouds in the sky now, but they're the kind that you get on a bright summer's day, not the sort that hold rain.

I keep going for several hours, probably longer than I should, because I'm looking for a safe place to hide. It's hotter than the previous day but I'm not sweating, which I take as a good sign. I don't even feel too thirsty today. There are less bushes here, and I have to crawl on my stomach to get under one. With my blanket to lie on and the gloves on my hands, I can pretend it's comfortable. At least it's a safe place to spend the day. I doze for a while simply because I can, but at the back of my mind is the worry that I haven't heard any more cannons. Not because I want people to die, but because if the games get too dull, the gamemakers usually do something to liven things up. I just hope that the other tributes are being more interesting than I have today.

I wake up, heart racing, head pounding, and start trying to convince myself that I'd been dreaming the sound of a scream. But no, I can hear voices in the distance, and a moment later, a cannon sounds. I'm well concealed here as long as nobody comes too close, but all the same I hold my breath, pulling everything back into the centre of the thorns as quietly as I can. And tightening my grip on my knife. I strain to pick up words.

"Was that eleven or twelve?"

"Twelve I think. Eleven looked less...weedy"

There's a burst of laughter, and then

"Come on, let's clear out so the hovercraft can clean this up."

More laughter, receding into the distance. I shudder and allow myself to breathe again. It's been hours since I drank anything so I take several mouthfuls from my waterskin. The water's unpleasantly warm but I can feel it trickling down my throat all the way to my stomach. My head feels a little easier and I realise that if I don't find liquid soon, I'm in serious trouble in this heat. Thankfully it's already beginning to get dark as I venture out of my hiding place and look around. Then I set off in the opposite direction to the voices. My plan is to put as much distance as possible between myself and the voices as long as I can see clearly, then shelter again. It's not much of a plan, but it's all I have.

It turns out I can see better in the twilight than I expected. I've been moving slightly uphill, which makes me hope I might end up on the other side of the ridge I saw yesterday, though why I'm hoping for that I have no idea. One thing I have noticed is that there are trees here. They're not like trees I've ever seen before, having huge thick trunks and sparse branches that give them the appearance of having been planted upside-down. I go up to one and walk around it, running my hand around the trunk. The bark feels thick and rough, though I don't fancy my chances of climbing it. Not that I'd want to - these trees are maybe 10 metres high at most, not enough to get out of range of a spear or arrow.

I keep walking, drinking again from my depleted water bottle and eating three strips of dried meat. Despite my promises I'm starting to worry about my meagre food supplies, and I realise I haven't seen so much as a bird flying overhead, even if I did somehow manage to catch one. The bushes here are thicker and slightly less thorny, so I can take my pick of hiding places. I ignore the largest, thickest clump in favour of a smaller less comfortable looking place where I tuck myself in. My leg feels almost healed, though in the fading light I unwrap my bandage and apply another coat of the medicine, just in case. There's only one face in the sky - the boy from district 12. I doze off feeling more lonely than I've ever done in my life.

I've made it to the third day, and I desperately need water if I'm going to make it to a fourth, though I have no idea where to look. I've heard something about digging underground at an angle, but I'm not risking my knife to dig with. I allow myself just two mouthfuls of liquid before I'm moving again, from one thorn bush to the next, in case the career pack are still in the area. The first time I stumble over a small cactus I curse it under my breath, as I hit the ground and graze my palms, but then a memory stirs and in the next moment I'm on my knees, pulling on my gloves and inexpertly skinning bits with my knife. Nobody would call my efforts successful but the results are edible, if a bit stringy, and at least fresh plants contain more liquid than my dried meat. I dig up several and sit under the shadow of a tree, skinning them and sucking their liquid until they're nothing more than husks. My headache has lessened considerably and I feel almost pleased with myself.

I pay more attention to the plants after that, though my only real find is a prickly pear that has several fruits. I pick the lot and take them with me in my plastic bag, though in my preoccupation with the fruits I hadn't heard the voices. At least two people, and I'm close enough that I've almost stumbled into them. Cursing my inattention, I duck behind the closest bush, listening intently. It's then that I realise the voices sound familiar and risk a look. Twenty metres away I can see faint movements through another thicket of thorns. Two tributes, who like me are so wrapped up in what they're doing they don't see me approach.

"Good thing we're allies" I greet, and they turn round with a shocked gasp, and horrified expressions which quickly turn to exclamations of relief. Leno leaps up and runs over to hug me. I'm touched by his reaction, but I'm so glad to see them that I hug him back and then cross to where Vila's still sitting. She's got a badly tied bandage around her upper arm, and they've both covered their faces and hair with some sort of sand-coloured paste. The effect is startling.

"I've got something that'll help with that" I say, pulling out the little pot of ointment.

"Thanks. The boy from 8 was stronger than he looked" she says with a slight grimace as I smear the medicine over a deep knife wound. Then I take the rest of the bandage out of my backpack and wrap it around her arm. They both look impressed.

"You got some good supplies" Leno says. I stare at the ground.

"I had help" I admit, unwilling to say more. But Vila nods.

"Arcturus didn't make it."

"He got the backpack. Then one of the careers threw a knife - I didn't see who it was - and it got him in the back, and..." I find I can't say any more, and Vila doesn't ask. Then I remember she's all but admitted to killing the boy from 8, and I decide I understand.

"Have you got water?" I turn to see Leno holding out a waterskin, slightly larger than mine. I shake my head, thirsty though I am. I don't want to take what they have.

"I've got fruit. We can share." I get out the plastic bag containing the now-squashed pieces of prickly pear, dividing them into three. I notice Vila's eyes widen. "They won't keep. And we can get more" I explain, pushing a decent-sized pile over to her.

We eat and go over our supplies. Leno got away with just a cooking pot and his water skin, which is now only half-filled.

"I was between two careers. I figured it was better to stay alive" he says with a grin and a shrug.

"Good choice" I tell him. I'm just relieved he's got this far.

Vila's done a little better. Her backpack contained needle and thread, a box of crackers, a half litre bottle of water, a pair of socks, a length of rope and a large plastic sheet. She's also got a single bloodstained arrow, which I decide not to ask about. The sheet is crumpled and stained with sand.

"We take it in turns to sleep under that" Vila admits. "Whoever keeps watch gets to wear the socks."

I try to think of something to say. It seems wrong to admit I've slept the last two nights by hiding in thorn bushes. It seems doubtful we'll find one large enough for the three of us. We're jerked harshly back to reality by a cannon shot, causing us to hold our breaths. None of us say anything. There's no need. We'll find out who it was tonight, but for now it's getting too hot to risk being out in the open. At least with the plastic sheeting, my blanket, and three jackets, we manage to improvise a fairly decent tent inside a clump of bushes. I offer to keep watch, because I've spent a lot of time sleeping so far, and the other two are asleep within minutes.

Now that I've found my alliance, I start to worry, though. Because this can only be temporary. Because only one of us is getting out of here. I forget about listening for other tributes over the occasional chirp of insects and watch Vila and Leno. When did they start holding hands in their sleep? She's two years older than he is. Then I wonder when I got so judgemental, and look away until it's time to wake Leno so he can watch for a while.

The fruit helped with my thirst but not hunger. I pull out three strips of meat - I've only got two left now - and eat one, handing the other two over to Leno. I don't need to tell him to save it for Vila. Then I curl up at one side of our shelter and close my eyes, thinking it'll be a miracle if I manage to get any sleep.

Then someone's shaking me and my eyes fly open. It's nearly full dark and Vila's got a finger to her lips, a bit unnecessary because I know better than to make a sound anyway. I struggle to sit up but even as I do I can see why she's woken us. A hundred metres or so off to our right I can see a light shining.

"Who is it?" Leno asks, fear evident in his voice. We stare in that direction, trying to make out anything past vague shapes. It's starting to get cold again and I shiver involuntarily. The light seems to be searching the ground, as if it's coming from somewhere higher up.

"They're in a tree?" I whisper incredulously. Someone's had the sense to climb a tree and now they're advertising their position by waving a flashlight around? Vila seems to be thinking along similar lines.

"We've got to stop them" she whispers back. I nod, and gesture towards the place the light is coming from. She makes gestures to Leno - I think she's telling him to stay with our supplies, though I've already pulled my backpack over my shoulders. I would have told Leno to come, but then remember he hasn't got a weapon - though neither has Vila unless you count her single arrow. I wonder if she's already used it. The two of up slip out and head towards the light, creeping from one patch of dubious cover to the next as we try and get close without ending up being spotted. There's a rustling behind us and I almost shriek, spinning round with my knife in my hand.

"Leno! What are you doing?" I demand in a furious hiss.

"Helping you" he whispers back, holding up a pointed rock in one hand. Okay, so maybe he's not completely weaponless after all. I grit my teeth so I don't say anything. The last thing we want is to be caught by the careers whilst having an argument - that'd make great viewing - and turn back to the light. It's wavering around in our direction and we freeze, thinking the tribute must have heard us.

The light topples towards the ground, and a moment later there's a crash, followed by a long, protracted scream.


	3. Chapter 3

We race over to the girl - it has to be a girl from the high-pitched voice - who is still screaming. Vila reaches her first and clamps a hand over her mouth, which muffles the sound but doesn't stop it. She's drawing her hand back to punch the girl unconscious when I reach them and grab her hand.

"Wait! We can..." My voice trails off as I recognise the girl from 9, the thirteen year old. I don't need to know anything about medicine to see that her body's twisted at an unnatural angle. Dropping to my knees, I pull off my backpack and start pulling things out. "It's okay. If you stop screaming I've got something that'll help" I tell the girl. Her eyes widen; she wants to believe me. I wonder how much of the screaming was because she fell and how much because she thought she was about to die. She quietens to soft whimpers and Vila takes her hand away, then spots what I'm holding.

"How did you..?"

"Tell you later" I say, then lean over the girl. "Where does it hurt?"

"My...neck. My legs are okay, but my neck..." she lets out another whimper that she's obviously trying to suppress.

"Okay, let me check" I say, shielding my actions as I dig my knife a good inch into her ankle. There's absolutely no reaction. I look back and force a smile. "You're right, your legs are fine. I can stop your neck hurting, though."

She manages the smallest of smiles, wanting to believe, and I plunge the morphling syringe into her neck. Within seconds, the agonised look starts to leave her face. I have to strain to hear her whispered "Thank you..." I have a terrible feeling that she knows.

"Close your eyes" I say. She does, and a single tear trickles down her cheek. Leno opens his mouth to say something, then takes Vila's arm and tries to drag her away. I shut them out, stroking the girl's hair out of her eyes.

I will my hand to stop shaking as I slit wrists she can no longer feel, and then, once I'm sure she can't feel anything, her throat. Then I switch her flashlight off as the cannon sounds and walk away, tears coursing down my cheeks.

Twelve down. Eleven to go. I try to tell myself that I'm halfway home, but it's no comfort. We head back to our shelter and sit in a silence that none of us has the will to break. Leno threw up before we got halfway back. The Panem anthem is what finally makes us look up. The first face in the sky is the girl from district 4.

"When did the career go?" I ask in disbelief, but nobody answers because we're looking up at the little girl, the one who I killed because otherwise she would have lain there in agony until dehydration finished her or someone less merciful found her. It doesn't make me feel any better. I'm a murderer now.

"There's a third alliance somewhere." Leno says quietly, and we look at him. "Well think about it. The careers won't be working alone this early into the games. One person alone couldn't have taken one of them out, even a girl."

"So who else is left?" Vila says, almost to herself as she picks at the end of her bandage "1 and 2, the boys from 3 and 4, us..."

"District 11" Leno finishes. "I'll bet they're allied with whoever it is we can't remember."

It makes sense. And while I'm not sure I like the idea of there being another alliance around - one that's probably stronger than we are - if they've already fallen foul of the careers once, it gives us a bit more breathing space because that will have made good viewing in the Capitol.

All the same, we have a whispered argument about who's going to take watch, because all of us want to do it. As I try unsuccessfully to sleep, I realise that we're all afraid of reliving the girl from 9 bleeding out when we close our eyes. It's the longest night of my life. There are times when I almost wish we would be found, just so this could be over. We're all chilled and exhausted when the first light appears in the sky. But none of us move. We stay where we are, not even bothering to drink, though we're all thirsty. I wonder if this could be the first time an entire alliance dies purely from lethargy, but even that's not enough to make me react. Now that it's light, sleep doesn't seem so frightening, so we plan our watch rota and drift off, two at a time.

I wake to a rustling and Vila's hand on my shoulder. She's staring straight ahead. Leno and I sit up almost silently and look in the same direction. There's a boy digging a hole about fifty metres away. He's sheltering under a giant cactus, but we can see him clearly. Vila is holding her arrow defensively, and I scramble out next to her. We exchange a look. Then Leno taps us both and gestures to the thorny ground, where he's written the word _ally?_ We both stare at him for a moment, weighing up our options.

It's the fourteen year old from three, the one who looks like a child. Not much of an ally, but if we get him on our side then it'll be four against five, and even if they're careers, there'll be a certain amount of safety in numbers. On the other hand, only one of us can win, and if it can't be me, I want it to be Vila or Leno. But Leno is already crawling out of our shelter, rock in his hand. When he gets about halfway there he calls out softly. The boy jumps up, his posture defensive, something small in his hand.

"My allies are back there. The girls from five and six" Leno says, using the same quiet voice.

"Mine are over there" the boy retorts, pointing vaguely back into the distance, looking uncertain. And then, "I killed a snake. I'm going to cook it. You can have it, if you let me go."

I step out of the shelter. "If you share that snake, we'll show you how to get fruit. And you can have a sip of this." I hold out my almost empty waterskin, still wondering if we shouldn't kill him right away.

"I've got water. Been collecting it each night. You can have that as well" the boy replies. He's getting ready to run.

"She's good with that knife. Throws it a long way. And I killed the boy from district 8. If we were going to kill you, we'd have done it by now. So, allies?" Vila states matter-of-factly, coming up behind me.

The boy seems to consider something, then drops down to his knees again with a kind of resigned shrug. "If you help me dig this firepit, you can share my snake" he says, the beginnings of a grin on his face.

His name's Cable. He's done pretty well for someone who fled the cornucopia with a tin cup and a plastic bag. He'd read somewhere about tying a bag over a plant to make it give you water, which he didn't believe, but he tried it on the first night and found it worked. It has to be something with leaves - even the thorns work - because the cacti don't give their liquid away. He got cut pulling out some of the longest spines, but otherwise he's in pretty good shape. He hadn't encountered any other tributes before us, but he'd used his spines as weapons to kill the snake, after coming across it basking in the Sun. It's the second one he's caught, so he's confident they're not poisonous. My jaw drops in amazement.

"Only we need the pit, so we can heat rocks and put the skinned snake on the rocks. Then it cooks without a flame so nobody sees it and we can lie on the hot sand at night to stay warm" he explains. He sounds like he's read it all from an encyclopaedia, and I wonder what sort of a place district three is. The snake meat is good, though, juicy and hot, and together with the fruit we almost feel satisfied afterwards. I'm almost learning to ignore my constant thirst.

Cable keeps the snake fangs. They might come in handy, he says.

We pass the next two days without incident. With four of us, it doesn't feel safe to stay in the same place so we move from one patch of thorns to another each night. Cable and Vila catch another snake, and I use my plastic bag to get water. Together with another patch of prickly pears, we're barely dehydrated now. I remember something from the knot tying station and strip bark from the inside of a tree, making a rough twine that holds together as long as you don't fiddle with it too much. Leno make each of us a necklace with a snake fang so we even have an alliance token. Our hunger is bearable, we all manage a few hours' sleep, and we even have a few laughs together. Nothing happens, so presumably our camaraderie coupled with whatever's happening elsewhere in the arena is enough to keep the audience amused. None of us mention that only one of us is getting out.

At dusk the next day, which Cable tells us is the seventh day we've been in the arena (I've lost count, it feels far longer) there's a cannon. The two of us are out looking for food at the time, and I'm guessing there's a stricken look on my face to match his. Neither of us says a word as we start sprinting back to our camp, terrified of what we may find. Neither of us stops to think we might be running into danger, and then two equally frightened figures crash into us at a dead run and all four of us collapse to the ground, gabbling incoherently. Only the sound of a second cannon silences us.

The fact that Cable and I only found a single cactus which is barely three mouthfuls each pales into insignificance against us still being alive.

The first face in the sky is the male from district two, followed by eleven. The silence after the anthem plays is absolute.

"Well that's it, then" Leno says. Vila nods, as if agreeing with something. I realise that they're talking about the third alliance, the one we didn't know about. Gone, and now the careers will be coming after us. Except that's not quite what Leno's thinking.

"There's four careers and four of us."

I stare at him "You're not seriously suggesting..?"

"Why not? Cable's cleverer than they are, we can hide better than they can, and they won't be expecting it. They're not invincible, two of them have gone already. Besides, I'd rather choose how and when I die" Vila says, as if the matter's already settled. Nobody else seems willing to contradict her; as the oldest, we all look upon her as a sort of leader. , She's been the one making the decision about when we move, and in which direction. I take the first watch, thinking about what she said. There is a certain logic in her plan. While we're all smaller than the careers, I'm willing to bet we can all move more quietly than they can and we've got a reasonable chance of at least injuring one or two of them before they realise they're there. The difficulty will be in working out where they are.

Next morning, it turns out we've all been thinking along similar lines.

"They've probably stayed close to the Cornucopia" Cable says "When I studied the previous games, that seemed to be their usual tactic."

It's as good a place to start as any. We pool our weapons and try to come up with a plan. I'm assuming it's my knife that's going to be argued over but Cable get excited when he sees my pliers.

"If only we had some wire..." he says, turning them around longingly in his hands. "Still, I think we can...yes..." he trails off, laying out cactus needles in a kind of geometric arrangement and studying the rope. I glance at the other two. Vila's laying out the last of the crackers and a few bits of dried fruit; Leno shrugs, evidently as confused as I am. "Alright, we can do this!" the small boy announces, gathering everything up and packing it neatly into my backpack again. We eat breakfast and take it in turns to keep watch - our water's getting short and it's another blazing hot day, but I'm used to a dry throat and pounding head by now. Hopefully their knowledge of our plan will keep the gamemakers from doing anything to hurry us along.

Leno and I are preparing to set out to find food in late afternoon when we spot a parachute coming in our direction.

"Wonder who it's for?" I ask, turning it over in my hands, before unwrapping it and grinning. "You've got a present" I say, tossing two small coils of wire and three arrowheads over to Cable.

"Wow, thanks Beetee!" he exclaims, his grin a mile wide. I almost feel happy, the way I feel at the end of a shift at the power plant when I know my father's coming for dinner. Maybe he's watching. That thought makes me smile as well.

"Come on" I say to Leno and we head off in a different direction to look for food. I'm hoping we'll find another snake - they taste a bit like chicken and I've lost my revulsion for cutting their heads off now - but instead we find a nice crop of prickly pears. We strip the bush, eating two each and stuffing the rest into my backpack. I've grown used to the uncomfortable growling feeling in my stomach and know they won't be enough to make a decent meal, but they'll keep our hunger at bay and give us strength, as well as soothing our dry, scratchy throats for a few hours. When we get back Vila mixes a disgusting paste out of sand and mashed-up cactus and covers our faces and hands. I try not to recoil from the smell, knowing that if I look as weird as the others we'll blend into the environment nicely.

We set off at dusk, keeping a safe distance from where we judge the cornucopia to be, slipping from one stand of thorn bushes to the next. I can't help thinking this is going to turn into a suicide mission, but at the same time I feel weirdly elated. Maybe it's the fact that we're actually doing something after a week of hiding in bushes waiting to be caught at any moment. Setting out to actually face our likely doom - even against careers - feels strangely exhilarating.

The landscape changes; there are less bushes here and I can't imagine anyone managing to survive for long. My night vision is judged to be the best so I climb up the slope, lying on my stomach and edging forward when I get close to the top, and peer down. Eighty or so metres away I can see a fire, and hear muttered conversation. Someone seems to be tying on a bandage. Someone's got a pan over the fire, and I imagine I can smell food. It's almost enough to make me reckless, and I imagine for a moment that we can take all the careers out, or at least distract them long enough so that we can steal some of their food.

I creep back down the slope and explain my new plan.

By morning Cable has rigged up three traps amongst the sparse bushes, all of which could potentially kill if they're triggered properly. He and I are in charge of them, whilst Leno has Vila's arrow and a small pile of jagged rocks he's collected. Vila, as the fastest, takes both empty backpacks and waits where I'd been lying the previous night. It's a risky plan, and my bravado from the other night has mostly faded. I'm trying not to let my hands shake.

I'm in charge of a catapult made of rope and arrowheads, as I'm older and likely stronger than Cable. He's used the rolls of wire to create a kind of snare that'll not only trap anyone who steps into it, but also fire those long cactus spines into them. He says it probably won't kill anyone but should stop them long enough that we can...

He doesn't say the word kill, and neither do we.

The riskiest part of the plan comes now. Leno has to let himself be seen, just for a moment, but not in such an obvious way that they'll think it's a trap. We're relying on the rumour that careers are generally arrogant and not afraid of anything, as well as the hope that they'll all come over to see what's happening. Leno darts from behind one ruined wall to another, gripping a snakeskin in his hand like someone who's desperate for food. I hold my breath, just able to see as one of the careers stands and points in our direction. It seems like a lifetime before they start walking over, the boy in the lead making hand gestures that presumably tells the others to spread out, because I can no longer see them.

I have to fight my instincts to run and hide.

Leno darts back next to me, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his eyes huge and terrified. I know I've only got one chance to take them by surprise, and I pull back on the rope of my catapult, telling myself that I'll have time to aim the arrowhead, because they have to get past Cable's traps too, and then everything happens at once.

There's a yell as someone triggers one of Cable's traps, and he's hauled into the air by one ankle, yelling incoherently as forty or so cactus spines shoot into his torso and arms, right at the moment a tall, tough-looking girl spots me and I release the rope before she can shoot the arrow she's got loaded in her bow. She falls to the ground but she's not dead, just injured.

Everyone's yelling at once, the boy hanging by his ankle's screaming "It's a trap!" and there's another boy running at Leno with a spear and Leno ducks and rolls and I can see blood on him, but he's up on his feet again and running and then I'm standing with my knife in my hand ready to fight the career and at the back of my mind I know there's something terribly wrong, because Cable's vanished entirely and I think he's run away, but then he's standing right by the last trap, the one that hasn't been triggered yet, and the female career I hit with my first arrow has spun round and runs at him screaming and then she's hanging in the air stuck with spines too but I've already got the catapult loaded and I let it fly again.

Then I'm yelling "everybody RUN!" because I'm willing to bet the last career isn't going to chase three of us, not with two of his allies hanging in the air, and then I realise there should have been four of them instead of three and I experience a horrible sinking feeling, and only the fact that I haven't heard a cannon stops me from turning back to see what's happened. Then we're running away into the ruins as fast as we can, and Vila's there with us, wearing one backpack and carrying another and I grab the backpack she's carrying so she can run faster and as I do I notice blood on my arm and wonder why it doesn't hurt, and we keep going, all four of us, until we're staggering and exhausted and Vila's fallen way behind, which doesn't make sense because she's the strongest and fastest, that's why she was the one stealing the supplies.

We collapse behind an outcropping of rock, gasping for air. Leno risks a look behind. There's nobody there.


	4. Chapter 4

We're exhausted, sprawled out on the sandy earth and gasping for air, but I feel exhilarated. We did it! Leno's got a nasty cut in his side from the spear and another on his head but insists he's okay. I find a jagged gash down my forearm that I can't remember getting, but it's not serious, and Cable's fine apart from cutting his fingers on the wire because he was trying to salvage the length he hadn't used. Vila's lying back against the compacted earth, looking pale even beneath her camouflage. For the first time I notice the dark patch on her shirt that can only be blood.

"We did it!" she gasps, though her smile looks forced to me. Leno sits beside her, stroking her hair out of her eyes, and I wonder again when they became an item.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"The girl from One stayed behind to guard their supplies. I had to take her out before I could get anything" she says, her voice weak. Her eyes are blazing in triumph.

"Did you kill her?" Cable sounds very young, a child asking the result of a playground game.

"Don't think so. Just knocked her unconscious, I think. But I got..." she struggles to sit up, to remove her backpack, and Leno helps her, gently laying her back against the stones.

We look through both packs. Given how little time she had Vila's done brilliantly. Bottles of water, packs of crackers, energy bars, tins of stew, a first aid kit, a blanket, two more coils of wire, a blowgun and darts and three small cooking knives.

"I just grabbed whatever I could, and ran" she says, actually sounding apologetic. I open a fresh bottle of water and offer it to her, trying to ignore how badly her hands are shaking. Leno helps her, takes a drink himself then offers it to me. Cable and I finish the bottle between us.

"We can't stay here" I say "the careers are going to come looking for us as soon as they get free." I lower my voice "Vila, do you think you can walk?"

"Why d'you think I got that first aid kit?" she demands, managing another shaky grin. "Boys, you pack the stuff and Cyra can fix me up. She's good at that." I start to deny it and then catch something in her eyes.

"Yeah, you just don't want the boys looking up your shirt!" I say with a wink at Leno, who blushes and moves away.

"And make sure you pack the stuff evenly. I'm not carrying all those tins myself!" she calls after them, her voice barely above a whisper. Then she lifts her shirt, and because it's just the two of us, and we're the oldest, practically adults really, and the children aren't here now, her eyes show her fear. She's been stabbed. I can't tell how deep it is, but it's just under her ribs, and her t-shirt's stuck to the wound. I have to pull it off, which of course makes her bleed even more, but I want to cover it with antiseptic cream because it's the most useful thing in the first aid kit. She breathes harshly through her teeth as I cover it with a pad and bandage it right round her body. She's shaking and her skin's covered in a sheen of sweat. I find some painkillers and she dry swallows three, grimacing at the bitter taste. Then she looks straight at me, her voice low and urgent

"Don't tell them."

Her tone scares me. I insist "You're going to be fine."

"So there's no need to tell them." There's a note of finality in her voice. As I finish bandaging her I ask

"So...you and Leno."

"Yeah." she smiles

"I didn't think..."

The smile fades. "I'm not pretty. I know that. I've never had a boyfriend. I know he's only fifteen, but he's a nice boy and...well, I wanted to know what it was like. To...date someone. You know."

I've never been kissed either. Probably never will be, but I don't mention that. Nor do I mention that hiding and running for your lives doesn't exactly count as a date. Instead I say "He likes you. He told me." It isn't exactly a lie.

The spark returns to her eyes "When?"

"In the elevator. That last night, after you..." I hear a sound and my head whips round to see the boys standing awkwardly behind us. I pull her shirt down, covering the bandages, and she nods at me and holds out her hand. I try not to show the strain on my face as I practically lift her to her feet.

"Okay, Vila's not carrying anything. Doctor's orders" I say. Leno and I take a backpack each - they're pretty heavy, but that just means more food for us all - and Cable takes all our other stuff wrapped in the blanket. We make sure Vila's in between us as we start back the way we came, keeping as far from the Cornucopia as we can manage, but it soon becomes clear that we're not going to get far. I breathe a sigh of relief when we see the first clump of thorn bushes in the distance.

We settle her on our new blanket and the boys prepare a meal from the tins. Vila doesn't eat much, and the sheen of sweat on her skin worries me. I'm fairly certain the stab wound has ruptured something inside her, but I'm determined not to mention it. So I keep up a cheery face as we eat, try to cajole her into eating more than a couple of mouthfuls, and add another bandage over the first to hide how much blood she's lost. Sometime during that long afternoon there's a cannon but none of us are in the mood to speculate. Secretly I hope it's one of the careers, the one that Vila fought.

"We're almost in the final eight" Cable comments quietly. He's digging a hole and burying the tins we've eaten from. I wonder why, but he's by far the cleverest of us so there has to be a reason. We spend the afternoon resting and pretending that Vila's going to get better. Leno sits with her, telling her about our district, holding her hand. She manages to smile and occasionally says a few words, her voice weak and breathless.

The anthem after dark reveals that the girl from 11 has died. I feel worse than I expected knowing that we didn't manage to take out any of the careers. Vila's slipping in and out of consciousness by now, and there's no way I can hide that from the boys. When a parachute floats down right outside our shelter the three of us startle, looking at each other. Somehow, there's something that'll make her better, surely?

I open the fabric with trembling hands and find a vial of sleep syrup, and curse myself for opening it in front of Leno. He knows, surely. But neither of the boys say a word. They look at each other and Cable goes out to keep watch. I'm pretty sure he'll sit there all night if we let him. I slip out and join him, but I can still hear Leno. He's still talking, telling Vila that when he gets home he'll visit her family on the Victory tour and tell them how great she was, how happy he is to have been her boyfriend and that he loves her. I wonder if he means it, and just as quickly decide it doesn't matter. When she starts moaning in pain he comes out, his face tearstained, and holds out a hand to me. I give him the syrup without a word.

Sometime in the early hours her cannon sounds.

I'm in the final eight, but I feel numb. Nothing feels real, and I can't even decide if I ever hoped to get this far. Life before the arena seems such a distant memory it might have been a film I'd watched on television, something that happened to someone else. We moved last night; rebandaged our injuries, split our supplies and staggered through the dark until we found another thicket of thorns. Cable kept watch, but I don't think any of us slept much. I ignored Leno's muffled sobs, knowing there was nothing I could say to make it better and unsure whether he wanted to talk. My arm is stiff and swollen and I struggle to move it as I prepare breakfast. The fact that we've got enough food and drink to last for days seems like scant reward now. We eat because we have to, move as little as possible, and salute Vila's picture when she appears in the sky. The next day passes in the same vague blur. None of us can think what to do next. Another attack on the careers would be suicide now we've lost our strongest - our only - fighter, so we do nothing. So we wait a day, then another...

There are no pictures in the sky tonight. I'm keeping watch, staring out into the darkness, shivering slightly because we left Vila wrapped in the blanket when she died. It seemed wrong to take it away from her. There are faint rumblings from somewhere in the distance, and I slip out of my nothingness. A thunderstorm? I wake the boys, thinking we should rearrange our shelter to protect us from the rain that seems likely, but the rumblings are louder now. Louder than any thunder I've ever heard, and they seem to be coming from all around us. We hurriedly start shoving things into our backpacks, eyes wide and staring as we continue to search for the source of the eerie sound.

When the ground starts to shake we start running.

I've heard the word earthquake before, but it was meaningless up until now, just something that used to happen before the Dark Days, before the whole shape of the world changed and the Capitol controlled everything. And now they control even this, the end of my world. We hear a cannon above the rumblings and shifting of the ground and then I'm not even surprised when I see the careers running towards us. The girl from 2 and the boy from 1, with the boy from 4 struggling to keep up with them. I feel resigned that it's come to this, but even so I drop my backpack and try to move faster, because even when the ground is opening in great cracks all around us they're still going to try to kill us.

And in that moment I know I'm as bad as Felix, because the decision has been made. I'm prepared to run to save myself rather than fight for my friends, my allies who have looked out for me, who I've joked with and shared food and bandaged their wounds... and in that moment I stop. Because I will not be like the man who left my mother. Even if I die here, today... _now_ , I'm going to fight for them. For Cable and Leno, who are behind me, Cable by just a few yards, but Leno who turns out to be the bravest of us all had stopped to grab my discarded backpack and is closer to the careers than to us, and I scream when I see the huge boy from One aiming a bow and arrow at his back...

But then it doesn't matter because the ground opens up in front of Leno, so close that he never has a chance of stopping himself, though he tries. His arms pinwheels and he teeters on the edge of the crevasse until the arrow flies through the air.

I don't see what happened next because I shriek and turn my head away, but my imagination fills in the details, and by the time I look up he's falling in slow motion, and both Cable and I are running back in his direction, Cable with the sense to hold his backpack in front of him as a shield, me gripping a short knife which is the only thing still in my possession.

But it isn't enough. The boy from One has already loosed another arrow by the time I'm close enough to throw my knife. It doesn't leave my hand. Another cannon sounds.

Running. Sounds. _NotyourfaultCyra_ Noise. Struggling to breathe. _Nonotthatway_ Running. Voice. Noise. Cannon. Running. Slowing. _ItsokayIthinkitstopped_ Silence. No more running? Dark.

Anthem.

My head jerks up to the sky automatically. The girl from One. The girl from Two. The boy from Four and then...I scream, a sound that rips out of my throat I don't even recognise as myself. There are hands holding mine, a voice, urgent, telling me that it's not my fault, there was nothing either of us could have done. My eyes focus on Cable, shivering in front of me, his hands and face scraped as he pulls the lid off a tin of stew and tries to make me eat. I stare at him, uncomprehending.

He talks to me, telling me that the only others left are the male from 1 and the female from 8. Probably going to be one of those rare years when a non-Career wins. I ignore him. I'm as bad as Felix. I'm a monster. Cable sorts through our supplies and talks me through them. We've got my knife, a broken pack of crackers, three bottles of water, and two tins of stew. He gives me a water bottle and I remember I'm supposed to drink, expected to eat. I remember that people are watching. But I can't react.

Sometime during the following afternoon I come back to myself. I pick up the tin of stew and eat without being prompted, drink from the opened water bottle. Because I've realised that there's a fifty percent chance that either I or this little boy can go home. I want it to be me, but if it comes down to us, I'm not sure I could kill him. So I say nothing, and we huddle together in the ruined landscape, neither of us daring to sleep. I wonder if I'll ever sleep again. We spend the first part of the night jumping at noises that aren't there or are nothing more than rocks cracking as a result of the earthquake. Then we're startled out of our private hell by the Panem anthem.

 _"Greetings tributes, and congratulations on making it to the final four of the fifty third Hunger Games"_ comes the unmistakeable voice of Caesar Flickerman _"You have fought hard, and your courage and sacrifice is to be applauded. But now we plan to offer you a reward. A feast, to be held at the Cornucopia at luck, and may the odds be ever in your favour"_

Cable and I look at each other, our faces expressionless in the darkness. Undoubtedly there's a camera concealed nearby so all of Panem can see our reaction. I'm determined not to give one, even if I could remember how to show emotion.

"It's two against one this time" Cable says.

I stare at him, uncomprehending. "But there's still four of us..."

"But we're the only alliance left. If we're still watching out for each other..." he lets the thought trail off uncertainly, no doubt imagining that it's only a matter of time before I turn against him. But his words have reminded me of my promise to myself. If I can get him through the feast, I'll have gone some way toward redeeming myself. I hope none of this shows in my face.

After a long pause, I nod.

We drink a bottle of water each, banishing the throbbing heads and parched throats for at least a few hours, eat the last tin of stew, and divide the last crackers between us. We may be going to a feast but we're determined to go in healthy. I'm thinking again, and when Cable tells me that he doubts the girl from district 8 will be as prepared as us, I find myself agreeing. Ideally she'll distract the boy from 1 long enough for us to... Uughh. If they kill each other, it's going to come down to me and Cable. I stop thinking again and we begin the trek to the Cornucopia. The gamemakers have clearly planned the games to finish this way, because there's only one route open to us. We don't question where we're being led. In less than an hour we're in sight of the Cornucopia, and all around us seems to be deserted. Laid out on a huge circular table are bottles of water, jugs that must contain juice or milk; whole meals on platters.

But we're not taking any chances. We know the boy from 1 has a bow and arrow and must be around here somewhere. We crouch down and look all around. Nothing. The ruins are the only place he could be hiding but that doesn't seem the usual Career style. Cable and I look at each other. Whatever happens, we'll stick together. Staying as low to the ground as we can, we creep towards the table and the Cornucopia. If we can just get there we've got a place to defend, something to have to our backs...

I hear the arrow before I see it, grab Cable and pull him down on the ground just as it whistles past his ear. He gasps, but already he's twisting around to face the direction it came from. District One has lost the element of surprise but fires the second arrow anyway. We roll and get to our feet and that one misses as well, but he's running towards us, no doubt thinking he can easily take out a pair of scrawny kids. I pull my knife, ready to face him, see Cable darting away out of the corner of my eye. _Good, he's getting out of here_ I think vaguely, but then he's jumping in front of me holding a discarded arrow like a spear, and the Career has a knife as well and everything happens in a blur as Cable throws the spear and it glances off the Career's ribs, and then he throws his knife and is grabbing another one, all the time getting closer and closer, and then he moves his arm back to stab Cable...

...and suddenly, incredibly, the Career is writhing in the ground, both hands clawing at his face. I hesitate for maybe a second before stepping forward, my knife raised.

"Do it..." says a voice beside me, and I don't stop to consider why Cable isn't standing any more as I bring the knife down and down and down and down and hear a cannon. It's only after the Career's hands fall to his sides that I realise he isn't a monster after all but just a boy maybe a year older than me, a boy with a snake fang hanging from a bit of homemade twine sticking out of his eye.

"Never underestimate a homemade weapon..." says a small voice.

Cable is half-sitting, half-lying on the ground, holding himself up on one elbow, the other hand pressed against his chest. I refuse to think about what that means as I crouch beside him.

"Get your...knife" he says. I stare, uncomprehending. I don't want it, not now it's been responsible for the deaths of two people - three, if you count the girl on the third night - but Cable's the cleverest of us all and I reluctantly do as he says.

"We're not...last..." he says, though its more of a gasp this time. I ignore him, or maybe I just don't understand

"You need water" I say firmly, because I'm not going to think about anything else, and I walk towards the table, and I'm just reaching for a bottle when a blur streaks out from the mouth of the Cornucopia and rushes towards me, screaming. It is female, with long, dark, matted hair, but there the resemblance to anything human ends. What clothes that remain are torn and ragged and she's so streaked with blood and dirt its impossible to tell her original skin tone. She carries no weapon but her own nails, encrusted with gore and filth, and she's throwing herself at me, shrieking incoherently even as I bring up my only weapon.

In years to come I will wonder if I killed her or if it doesn't count when someone runs directly onto your blade. But now, as she falls to the ground and I run back to Cable with the water, I only have time to think about helping him, because for the moment I've forgotten why I'm here and the purpose of the games, and that there's always one winner as I lift his head into my lap and open the bottle of water, panic rising because his eyes are half-closed and he's not responding and there's blood, so much blood...

A cannon fires.

A cannon fires.

A fanfare.

I scream.


	5. Chapter 5

I've won the Hunger Games. They call me a Victor.

I'm already screaming when they lift me into the hovercraft. I don't stop until a needle pierces my arm. I scream again when I wake up in a pristine white bed and the same thing happens. It happens again and again until the time I wake up and someone's holding me tightly, whispering that it's okay, it's over now, that I don't have to think about it and there are people I can talk to back home who can help make it alright again. Slowly my mind clears enough to form a coherent thought, and I realise it's Felix.

"Hardie..?"

It's my first word since I won the games. My voice is a scratchy gasp, my throat damaged from the screaming. The doctors didn't notice or didn't realise or maybe just didn't care, because for all the fabled medical advances within the Capitol, they haven't done anything to fix it. I lift a hand to Felix, wanting to touch something - anything - to reassure myself that it's real, and am shocked by the smoothness of my skin. And by how much my hand is shaking.

"She's fine. They replaced something in her heart and she's been sitting up and talking for a week now. Half the orderlies are terrified. They were under orders not to let her watch the games, in case it caused her too much stress and...it's okay, Cyra, it's okay..." I've started hyperventilating at the mention of the word games, and he reaches for me again. I'm wearing nothing but a hospital gown but I don't care. I cling to him desperately and out of the corner of my eye see someone in a white coat approach. He waves them away. They just come back later and knock me out again.

Days pass. I'm on a diet of soup and apple juice, overcooked soft grain, and never enough water. I seem to be permanently thirsty, though the head doctor who comes to visit me twice a day assures me that it's entirely psychological, whatever that means. I'm still so full of drugs I don't much care what she says, but nothing stops the nightmares. I've gotten used to taking up screaming.

Apparently it's only been a week since they lifted me out of the arena. I don't believe them. It feels like my life is made up of two halves – my old life, before I went into the arena, and everything that's happened since. My old life is crystal clear, I can remember sitting in class reciting multiplication tables, delivering breaktime snacks to the full-time plant workers on my first week in the job, slipping alongside the edge of a crowd without once being seen. After that, the memories are jumbled and hazy. I can't work out what's real and what isn't. I keep remembering stabbing Cable in the eye, pushing Leno into a ravine, cutting the girl from 9's throat. They all feel completely real.

I'm drugged so heavily before my first TV appearance that I don't wake up until two hours before I'm due on air. My prep team have been doing my hair and nails while I'm still unconscious.

I punch one of them in the face when I writhe awake in terror, mind full of all-too vivid dreams where girls bleed out after falling from trees and I'm stabbing everyone I love in the eye with snake fangs. Volumnia scolds me, but she holds both my hands while she talks and somehow we end up both sobbing. My dress is metallic grey again, my make up matching and I look like something wild and futuristic. I'm surprised that I notice, and then decide that I like it. Given how disconnected from the world I feel, it's a good look. Felix stands with me under the stage next to my podium, and I vaguely find this strange because aren't the mentors usually introduced before the new victors? I want to ask, but my voice is still raspy and I've been told to speak as little as possible until the actual interview.

And then I hear shrieks and cheers, and when my podium rises I stare wildly around for a few seconds and then there's a real, beaming smile on my face and tears pouring down my cheeks as I run to Hardie and crouch by her wheelchair to throw my arms around her. The rest of the night pales into insignificance because it feels like I've at least got something positive to come out of all this. I cling on to that during the recap of the games and try to pretend it's someone else mercy killing the little girl, stabbing the boy from One, the girl from Eight. I stare into the audience when the Career pack take apart the girl from 11. Literally.

The next night is my interview. I'm wearing a shiny grey suit, my red hair vivid against the monochrome. Caesar tells me they called me the Angel of Mercy after I killed the girl from 9, that people in the Capitol were wondering why I'd given her the morphling until a doctor said it was an act of mercy. The name had stuck.

I wonder how merciful they think it is to stab people.

My voice is still hoarse but apparently the people of the Capitol think it's sexy. That'll be why the doctors didn't do anything to fix it, then. Caesar asks questions, I answer. I'm confused and a bit quiet at times, but I remember to praise the Capitol and thank my sponsors. Felix has told me repeatedly that I need to do that. I trust him now. Hardie tells me I've done well. President Snow places a crown on my head and shakes my hand, and then we can all go home.

On the train, Hardie sits on one side of me, Felix the other. Once we get home it'll be easier, they tell me, because while the Capitol likes its citizens to believe that Victors go straight back to a happy life of luxury, we don't have to pretend behind closed doors. They'll take care of me, be my new family, the one that understands what I've been through. Because as much as I'm longing to see my father and grandparents again, I can't tell them that I spend whole days questioning whether I deserve to have survived.

Felix shows me around my new house in the Victor's Village. It's next door to his, decorated in neutral shades with luxury furnishings. I'm allowed to change anything I want, but I like it. It's calm and inconspicuous, like I used to be. I can't wait for my grandparents to move in, but there's a rule that any new victor has to be passed fit before they can live with family members again. After I wake screaming for the third time on my first night back, I understand why. I wouldn't want them to have to see me like this. Hardie doesn't leave my house for a fortnight, sleeping in a chair beside my bed.

Slowly things take on some semblance of normality. I only wake screaming twice a night, then once, and then, nearly three months in, I actually sleep through the night. My medication is reduced. My grandparents are visiting for longer and longer periods, though they still haven't been given the all clear to move in. I have long periods of free time because I don't have to work, but I have to cultivate some kind of talent to impress the Capitol citizens on my victory tour. I've always fancied playing the flute, but the idea of doing it in public terrifies me. Hardie orders me one anyway, has it delivered with a pile of music books, and then a fortnight later calls the Capitol from my house to say I've got no musical talent whatsoever and we'll try something else.

"That'll stop them making you play the thing in public. Now you can learn in your own time" she says with satisfaction, and that evening I manage a halting version of the Panem Anthem. It almost feels like an achievement, until I remember I had to kill three people to get here. I put the flute down and sit staring at the floor.

In the end, I discover my talent by accident. Four months after I return home, I'm visiting the children's home and there's a chocolate cake in my honour. The kids are well trained, but I can see they're more excited by the cake than they are about meeting me.

"Do they have cake often?" I ask one of the house mothers.

"Only when a Victor comes to call" she replies quietly.

So I decide baking will be my talent. I've never tried it before - never had the ingredients - and I'm not very good at first. Oh, my first attempts are mostly edible, but they're misshapen - or scorched on top - or not quite properly risen...

But the kids don't mind.

When the cameras turn up, coincidentally just two days after my grandparents have been told they can move in with me, I show them sponge cakes, carrot cakes, chocolate brownies that aren't anywhere near Capitol standards. They expect their cakes to be iced and decorated, but that's not my talent. Just the baking, and there's always plenty of willing volunteers to sample my efforts.

By the time my Victory tour comes around half of district five are calling me Angel of Mercy as well, when nobody can hear.

Felix and I become friends.

One night I watch my mother's – his – Hunger Games.

She fell into a gamemakers' trap, a concealed pit, and he had the choice of getting her out and almost certainly being caught by the career pack, or running.

He made the same choice as I did.

I am terrified the night before my Victory tour. I've known since I won that I'll have to visit all the other districts, make a speech praising tributes I allied with or killed; that part's hard enough. The bit that frightens me is meeting the other victors. But what shocks me is discovering that they're like me and Felix and Hardie. Normal people who became extraordinary because it was either that or die. People who went through hell and are trying to do the best they can. Some are doing a lot better than others.

The young guy from twelve – Haymitch Abernathy - drinks his way through dinner but I can't blame him. He won just a few years ago, and while we never watched the games, I remember his name well enough. His story is heartbreaking. He won the second quarter quell, came home, and then his entire family died in some kind of freak accident two weeks after the games. The only living victor in his district, he's probably the loneliest person I've ever met.

District Nine is the one I'm dreading the most, after killing their little tribute, but Amira pulls me into an embrace when the cameras aren't looking and whispers "Thank you", echoing the words of the little girl. It takes years before I finally understand why.

In eight their lone victor barely speaks to me. His girl was the last one I killed, though I can't help wondering if she would have regained her sanity if she'd been the one to win instead of me.

I barely sleep the night before arriving in six, my mind crammed full of images of Vila, who I thought of as a friend, and Arcturus, who I practically left to die. When I do finally close my eyes they slam open quickly as images of being stabbed in the back fill my mind. I spend the night roaming the train, my heart racing, until an attendant asks if I want to see how the train is powered. He takes me to the front cabin and I watch the Sun come up as we're rushing towards it on perfectly smooth tracks. It doesn't quite distract me, but at least my panic has subsided.

It turns out I needn't have worried. Leda, who I'd already met the night before the games (I'd completely forgotten Leno's birthday party until I see the Six victors smiling at me) has already decided I'm her friend, and has designed a whole range of makeup in my honour. That was her talent. At the age of 43, she's been an addict her entire adult life, but despite her frightening appearance she's one of the warmest, kindest people I've ever met. Tyndareus, their male victor, won four years after her; the only victors Six has ever had. Both of them basically won through camouflage, being able to hide until they were the only ones left, which explains where Vila got the idea with the sand from. Living in the same house in Victor's village, which I sleep in after the dinner, they make me feel safe and when we leave for Four I feel like I'm saying goodbye to a favourite and well-loved aunt and uncle. I know I'll be back.

Three is the hardest. Seeing Cable's parents. Meeting Beetee, who I only know as a name. He's vague, confused, kind, a genius, yet warm and friendly. I don't understand why he doesn't hate me for winning. He pats me vaguely on the shoulder and wishes me luck for the future, and I wonder why there are tears in his eyes.

District two feels like a fiercer version of the Capitol, but without the surgical alterations. They're proud and patriotic and give speeches about how I've brought honour to my district. They have seven victors. I'm surrounded by them at the top table that evening, all of them cracking jokes and acting as though this is the most normal thing in the world. The tall, muscular girl called Lyme who won last year tells them to stop offering me wine and makes sure my glass is topped up with water. I think maybe I like her.

One is a surprise, given that I killed their tribute. They're polite and almost friendly, and again, it's years before I understand that they see me as a 'real' tribute. Someone who actually fought rather than hid, someone who took part, did their duty, and killed people. It scares me that anyone can think like that, and at the same time it's a relief. I already hate myself enough. It's nice to meet people who don't.

Back home, the centrepiece of the feast is a three-tiered cake I made myself, decorated by three Capitol confectioners. I sit between Hardie and Felix, with my grandparents and father at a table on the far side of the room.

Then I go to the Capitol for the final celebration, and my fragile new life falls apart.

I'm not beautiful. It's still a couple of months before my seventeenth birthday. But it's made very clear to me that I have to...entertain Capitol citizens, who will pay for the privilege. I don't even get to choose who they are. Men, women, old, young...I don't get to choose. Or rather, I get to choose, but if I say no...well, "Remember Abernathy from Twelve? He made the wrong choice. I'm sure you wouldn't want anything unfortunate to happen to your family" I'm told. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what that means.

I'm hysterical by the time I get home. I knew I'd be expected to mentor for the next games, but I had no idea I would have to...I can't even bring myself to think the words. Felix and Hardie are both horrified, though Hardie had heard rumours she hadn't wanted to believe. I wonder if that's why Beetee was kind to me. Did he know that Cable would be expected to do the same thing if he had won? I'm sitting shivering in terror for the fifth night running when she walks into my kitchen, without so much as knocking. It's a little before dusk and the last rays of Sun are filtering through my window.

"Looks like a beautiful sunset out there. Shall we go out and enjoy it?" she asks. I shake my head, and feel an iron grip on my shoulder. I look up, and something in her expression makes me follow her outside. We walk in silence for a few minutes. Then she sighs.

"I hate this as much as you do. Almost as much" she amends, seeing the look on my face. "But... you're a Victor. There must be someone around here you like enough to...well. At least they won't be taking more from you than you're willing to give" she says. It takes me several minutes to digest her words, and when I figure it out, I actually laugh. It's a watery laugh, because I start sobbing about half a second later, clinging to her like I did with my grandmother when I was little and woke from a nightmare, but a laugh all the same.

"What makes you think I haven't already?" I ask slyly, almost managing a sideways grin. She steps back and nods, though she must know it's a lie. "That's my girl." Then I burst into tears again, and she holds me and pats my back like I'm a child, and whispers that our houses are most likely bugged by the Capitol, so lets not mention this again.

I don't. Not to her, anyway. But she's given me something to think about, because despite what I said, I haven't, of course. I'm not pretty, and I've never been that interested in boys. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense, though there's only one person I want. Only one person I can trust, who understands what it's like. Hardie's right. I can't avoid meeting with these Capitolians, not if I want my grandparents to be safe, and now I've got used to them living with me again, I can't bear the thought of losing them. So I've got to do what the Capitol wants. But at least it can be on my terms.

Felix is horrified at first. I'm sixteen years his junior, and I know him well enough now to understand he's got a very strong sense of honour. But I'm persistent, and frankly, desperate. So by the time we're seated onstage waiting for two more of our district's children to be called to their probable deaths, I know I've at least managed to beat the Capitol in some small way.

The other good thing is that I discover I can cope with anything, given time, and I've at least had time to get used to the idea of what I'll be doing besides mentoring, repulsive though it still is. The Capitol are even thoughtful enough to send me a list of those citizens who have purchased 'the pleasure of my company', as they euphemistically term it. Three of them. Two men, one woman. None are elderly or hideous; all are rich beyond imagining. It's a measure of how bizarre my life has become that I'm incredibly relieved. Three seems...acceptable, compared to the horrors I'd been building up in my mind. I'd been imagining ten or a dozen. Three is...fine. I can cope with three. In a strange sort of way, it feels almost prophetic, given that I killed three people in my games. And of course, I have something else to occupy my mind on the journey to the Capitol.

Muara is six months older than me and refuses to listen to a word I say. She tells me I was pathetic for hiding and that she won't be frightened to face people and fight them. I try to reason with her but it's futile; she's seems to believe that her sheer anger at being picked will get her through the games. Heddon is seventeen and has no particular skills to speak of, though he turns out to be a reasonable shot with a bow and arrow. He makes it to the fourth day before he encounters a tiger mutt in the jungle arena.

Muara dies running into the bloodbath against all advice.

In between their training and deaths I spend a total of eight hours with my three Capitol citizens. It's horrible, but strangely not quite as appalling as I'd feared. They have personalities and names and they don't just want sex, which surprises me. It seems obvious to me that the woman, Swann Rudolphine, isn't quite right in the head despite her wealth. She wants to reenact the Hunger Games, but seems to think that pretending to hide behind sofas, jumping out on me and tearing my clothes off is identical to what she's seen onscreen. If the whole business didn't repel me it might even have been amusing. Of the men, only one wants to do anything painful, and he gives me a ruby the size of my eyeball as he slobbers goodbye.

On the Victory tour of the boy from Two, I am polite and friendly even as I wonder if he's going to be called to the Capitol too. He's definitely better-looking than I am.

The following year, our tributes form an alliance with the sixes. They're all terrifyingly young, fourteen and fifteen, and we know they don't have much of a chance, so we make their evenings as fun as we can, give them a party on the last night, and insist that a four is a perfectly acceptable score. They're all gone by the second day. I have four appointments this year. Swann has booked another two hours with me as has Gaviner Rankine, the man I hadn't actively hated the previous year.

Felix and I get married that winter. My grandparents try to understand, but no matter how they pretend otherwise they still struggle with the fact that Felix survived and my mother didn't. I could explain, but that would mean telling them things that would disquiet them even more. Me moving in with Felix means they have to move out of my house in the Victor's village, but they're surprisingly delighted about it. My grandmother sits down with me and tells me she misses her friends, and that I'm not her little girl any more. I cry and promise to visit. I do. Nearly every week I deliver a large cake to their apartment block.

At the next Hunger Games I have just two appointments, Swann and Gaviner Rankine. My regulars, as I'm starting to think of them. Felix says he'd be jealous, but for the fact that they never bother to visit. It's strange how dark our sense of humour is now.

Two years later we have a volunteer. Seventeen year old Cantor takes the place of his eighteen year old brother. District Five citizens are openly weeping in the streets, and the Capitol crowd goes wild.

Because Cantor is deaf, and he always intended to volunteer. He'd been training as hard as he could - running around the streets of Five, lifting the heaviest things he could find, throwing rocks at a target drawn in the dirt - since he was ten years old, steadfast in his belief that if he won the Hunger Games, the Capitol would be able to miraculously make him hear. His belief makes him a favourite of the Capitol, and the fact that he volunteered for his older brother, who's now safe for life, makes him something of a hero before training even begins.

He doesn't ally with his female counterpart or six, and he's rejected by the Careers when he hands the Two boy a note on the second day of training. So he sets out alone, armed with a brace of daggers and a snare, and he almost makes it.

It comes down to Cantor, the boys from two and four, and the girl from two. They face each other in the clearing of their wilderness arena.

"This is how it is" says Four, talking slowly and facing Cantor. "You pick one of us to fight. You win, and we leave you alone. Deal?"

Cantor understood. Not the words, but how the games worked. They were giving him a chance - one on one rather than three on one. Not much of a chance, because once he took one of them down he would still have to fight the other two, who would be fresh and uninjured. But he smiled and nodded, then pointed to the boy from Two.

For a boy who'd trained alone with no help, he did remarkably well. Not many could have held off a career for eight minutes in a fair fight.

At his victory tour that year, the boy from Two slipped a note into my hand. To my surprise, I recognised Cantor's writing.

 _Don't stab me from behind. Just let me face you. That's all I ask._

I nodded and closed my eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Each year that passes follows the same pattern. Eleven months of the year we can hide out in Victors' village, just the three of us, a little family that might be wife and husband and mother in law if not for the fact that we're all killers. For the last month, two of us must go to the Capitol. Mentor two kids who are all too often terrified and woefully unable to survive, and watch them die even as we do our best to save them. I reach my twenty-first birthday, then my twenty-second. My only clients in the Capitol now are the two I've known since my first year. I actually don't mind seeing them; you can get used to anything given enough time. Their tastes don't change, and they both imagine they have an actual relationship with me. I refer to them as 'my friends' in front of the other mentors, and I feel guilty because some of them have it far worse than me.

And then I fall pregnant. I'm terrified and thrilled at the same time. Felix can't wait to be a father; but having never had a mother of my own, I don't know how I'll manage. My grandmother tells me I'll be fine, that it all comes naturally. But I get sick, I lose weight before I start to gain it, and just when I'm starting to feel better again, seven months in my blood pressure skyrockets. I'm taken to the Capitol, spending my final month under the care of games doctors. I plunge into depression, wishing I was back home and saddened that my baby won't be born in District Five. But after I'm rushed for an emergency caesarean I'm grateful, because our daughter would likely not have survived had she been born at home.

We call her Iovita, after my mother. Its a common enough name in Five that people aren't going to immediately make the connection. Besides, my mother had done such a good job of hiding her pregnancy in the first place that she went into the games without anyone outside of our district knowing I existed. I feel a strong pang of regret for her death, that I never got a chance to know her. And I feel a sense of awe that she managed to keep her own pregnancy a secret, even to our closest neighbours.

The Capitol doctors advise us not to have any more children. Apparently I have a rare blood type and it's incompatible with pregnancy. Once, before the Dark Days, there was a cure. These days, they thought this blood type was all but extinct, and they've forgotten how to treat it. So little Iovita, sharing my shocking red hair and her father's quick instincts grows up as the only child of victors; with morphling godparents she sees just once a year. She's quick and clever and she loves the taste of chocolate. Everyone adores her.

Until she starts school. Like me, she's not a pretty child but she's extremely bright, with a cunning, almost ruthless streak. It's not a good combination for a girl who wants to have friends, and by the time she's eight, Iovita's a loner, slipping out of Victor's village to roam the district, unseen by anyone unless she wants to be.

That same year, a miracle happens.

We finally bring a Victor home.

In the year of the 68th games, Tullius is eighteen, from the district Six home. He's sweet and a little stupid and nobody thinks he has a chance at first, even though he stands well over six feet tall and has muscles from carrying railway sleepers since the age of fifteen. By now we're so closely allied with his district that we all feel it when any one of our four tributes die. This year both Tullius and our own girl Maryan make it to the final 8 before she's cornered by the careers while foraging for roots. I look away. But Tullius has listened hard to what Leda told him. Having grown up without a mother of his own, he took to calling her Mama Leda and he wanted to make her proud. So when the last of his alliance went down, his adopted brother and sisters since the first day of training, he avenged them in the only way he knew how. Because Tullius wasn't smart, but he knew that Careers need to pee just as much as anyone else. All he had to do was wait until one of them stepped away from the rest of the pack, and then he knocked them over the head with a rock so big the commentators wondered how he could even lift it.

After twenty three days in the arena, he joins our strange little extended family. And he has it easier than most of us. Because he wasn't quite right mentally to begin with, he struggled less with the knowledge that he was a killer, and more importantly, the Capitol had no hold over an orphan without family or friends. Nor did they want to risk an unpredictable teenager alone with Capitolians. So his first years as a Victor weren't as hard as mine had been. He chose pottery as his talent, and though he was barely competent, he was proud of his creations. And he had no need to resort to morphling to help him sleep like his adored mentor.

But the Capitol was wrong about one thing. Tullius worshipped Leda and by extension everyone connected with her, and despite the five murders he committed in his games, he was as gentle as a lamb. Iovita looked upon him as the big brother she'd never had, even though they only met once, on his Victory tour. They kept in touch with letters - drawings, in Tullius's case - and phonecalls after that...and every birthday Iovita would receive a lopsided, handmade piece of pottery which she proudly added to the collection on her bedroom shelf.

We never bring another one home, though. And then, two weeks after Iovita's fifteenth birthday the unthinkable happens.

My bright, cunning, smart girl is reaped, although her name's only in the reaping ball four times. Neither I, Felix or even Hardie can hide our horror as her name is called, and we can barely look the male tribute, an eighteen year old called Saladin, in the eye. Even as their names are announced, he must surely realise that he's the sacrifice, that we cannot bring him home. Even as we promise to do our best for him, he surely knows that we won't try *quite* as hard as we would any other year.

But we have one final week, trying to train Iovita, Saladin, and the tributes from Six to survive in a hell that all of us managed a lifetime ago. I try to ignore the fact that my daughter's at an even greater disadvantage than I was - she's not only small and weak, but she hasn't ever gone hungry, felt fear, or imagined what might happen if she were reaped.

Except she has, it turns out. She's noticed as well as I have that the children of victors get reaped far more often for it to be mere coincidence. She hasn't just watched previous games but analysed them, studied the tributes who won by surviving rather than just killing. And while she doesn't understand what it is that I have to do in the Capitol every year, she knows that I have friends and tells me on the first night that she's sure they'll be willing to sponsor her more than any other tribute, because she's my daughter. I've already been hoping for a miracle, but now I start to believe that maybe she does have a chance.

But even that one small ray of hope is soon extinguished. Any other year Iovita would have been feted as a golden child, the slogan "the odds will surely be in her favour" emblazoned above her head onscreen like it has been every other time a victor's child has to compete. Any other year, but for the boy and girl from Twelve who literally set the parade alight. After some initial excitement in the pre-parade buildup, a few brief mentions on TV shows, the Capitol seems to all but forget that Iovita is our daughter.

So she tells us that she'll use that to her advantage and simply disappear. She avoids weapons training entirely, instead concentrating on the survival stations. Edible foods. Fire making. Snares. Poisonous plants. Shelter building. Endurance. Anything that might help keep her alive. She keeps Saladin and the Six tributes close, eating with them, acting like they've been friends for years, yet I know the look in her eye that tells me it's all an act. Her strategy, she tells us, is to analyze the situation and apply herself. She sleeps in our room at night, not wanting to be alone. I know she's terrified but she's hiding it because, she says, if she lets her guard down she might not be able to find it again. I understand exactly what she means because, as much as I want to grab her close to me and cry, I know that if I start, I'll never be able to stop.

She looks so lovely for her interview; sea blue dress and her hair curled, she might be dressed to attend her own graduation. Despite her five in training she appears calm, relaxed, confident. I wish I could freeze time, or snatch her away and flee, but it's impossible. It's not my imagination - there are far more peacekeepers everywhere than I've seen before. Even at the party on Six's floor on the last night, we see one quietly standing at the far end of the corridor. Just in case.

We're all smiling, and we almost manage to fool each other. I'm veering between hope that she'll be the one to return and the agonising certainty that this is our last night together, and I'm desperately hoping the alliance holds, that my daughter somehow manages to survive. Because if both her parents managed, surely she stands a chance, too?

But like Leno two decades earlier, Iovita's positioned between two Careers on her podium. After a glance in either direction, she tenses as if to run toward the Cornucopia and I freeze...but the second the siren sounds, she spins a hundred and eighty degrees and streaks off towards the forest, leaving all the other tributes behind. I breathe a small sigh of relief that she'll survive at least the first day, but also that she doesn't have to watch her alliance splinter before it's even begun. Saladin and the pair from Six are cut down in the bloodbath, the boy from Six even as he's running away. I try desperately not to read too much into it, but I wonder if it's been planned. To make us suffer. I have no idea why – haven't I always done what the Capitol wants of me, haven't we all done what was expected of us?

Yet at the same time there's a sense of relief because at least all the District Five sponsorship money can go to her. After twenty two years without a Victor we're not a good bet, but there are two predictably big donors every year and we usually manage enough for at least one gift. But this year, that's literally all there is. I can't help wondering - was Iovita's five in training just not interesting enough, or is everyone so enraptured by the girl on fire that they've forgotten about everyone else?

Iovita's already down to the final twelve by the following morning. But she hasn't managed to find water, and she knows better than to eat the few edible nuts she's discovered unless she's got something to wash them down with. She tucks them into a pocket and spends the day searching fruitlessly for water, and ends up sucking on the nuts she found the previous day anyway, as she settles down, shivering, under a thorn bush and tries to sleep. I watch her clutching her stomach, tucking her hands inside her sleeves to try and keep warm. I scroll through the sponsor gifts. I wish I could send her a bottle of water...but there's a rule against sponsoring your own tribute. Stupid, really. If we want to bankrupt ourselves shouldn't we have at least that much choice? But I'd never dare to voice the though aloud.

I have an appointment that afternoon. Gaviner Rankine's third wife is in the house when I arrive, and she pats me on the shoulder as she leaves. It's safe to say that my mind is elsewhere, but he smiles sympathetically instead of complaining as he drives me back to the tribute centre late that night.

It's the early hours of the morning of the third day and I'm staring at the screen at my shivering, dehydrated, starving daughter when I see something float gently down beside her. A parachute? I look at Felix, but he's as surprised as I am. Iovita grasps it in both hands, unties the white fabric and a look of ecstasy spreads across her face as she lifts out a bottle and drinks from it. Then she lifts something small to her lips and takes a tiny bite, then another, and another. I see her mouth the words rather than hear them "Thanks, Mum." Tears are coursing down my cheeks and I feel an arm around my shoulders.

"Half a litre of water. A drawstring sack. And a single chocolate." Cecelia smiles sadly "It was the best we could afford."

The other mentors - even District two threw in a handful of coins - had donated to send my daughter a gift, because I wasn't able to. I am overcome as I sink into a chair.

"But you can only send gifts to your own tribute..." I murmur

"You can send gifts to any tribute you like, actually" says a voice. It's Seeder talking. "It's so rare that they never bothered to disallow it. When you won..."

"The syringe..." My mind slips back twenty two years, and I understand. Felix sent me the pain medicine when he realised that I wasn't going to use the morphling that - of course - Leda or Tyndareus had sent the previous night. Leda, high on her drug, unable to bear the sight of any of us in pain. Gradually other mentors come over to me, temporarily abandoning their stations.

"She needed those five thousand credits more than me" mumbles a tired voice. Woof, bless him, who barely knows what's going on most of the time.

"I told my tributes to keep out of her way" in a sharp, harsh voice. Johanna Mason, who hates just about everyone.

"Told Cato and Clove to kill her quickly" mutters Brutus, almost reluctantly. Coming from him, it's a kindness.

Mags mutters something to Finnick. "We've told ours to leave her alone unless it comes down to the final two" he translates.

Leda puts her arms around me and gives me a hug.

I'm in tears.

Half a litre is hardly enough to stave off dehydration, but Iovita is rejuvenated now she knows she hasn't been abandoned, and she now has supplies of a sort. Her sack, the half empty bottle, even the white fabric of the parachute are precious to her. I watch her fold it in different ways, wrapping it around her hands, twisting it into a scarf, and I imagine she's planning how best to use it when the night gets cold. She takes another sip of water, then gets to her feet and starts to skirt back to the Cornucopia. She's moving swiftly one moment and freezing to the spot the next when she thinks she hears something, and I'm terrified she's going to try something rash. But her plan – though I can't fathom what it might be - has unexpected benefits. An hour later she finds a patch of flowers she recognises and drops to her knees. Digging into the hard earth with her bare hands, she finds one, two, three roots that she tucks carefully into her bag. I watch her crawl into a thick patch of undergrowth and I know she'll be scraping the mud off her roots, eating them raw.

I could punch the air for joy, but I settle for squeezing Felix's hand as he comes in to relieve me. I'm supposed to sleep but instead I switch on the TV in our room and continue watching.

Something odd is happening. The Careers have returned to the Cornucopia and are digging up the earth around their platforms, moving all the supplies into a pile near the lake. I frown in confusion, – and then I realise with a start that Iovita is watching their every move. Somehow she's managed to creep close enough to observe and she's now settled into a thick clump of low lying bushes, staring intently. Memorising their every move. Because something very odd is going on, and it's not just that they've got the District Three boy in their alliance. When the Careers leave, he takes a careful, elegant path to the heap of supplies, chooses an apple, and retreats back to wait.

Iovita watches for another hour. The boy seems to be dozing. Then she streaks out from her concealment and copies the boy's path, mirroring his movements exactly. Out comes the drawstring bag and two apples, another water bottle and a tin of stew quickly go into it. Then her head whips round - has she heard something? - and she dashes off in the opposite direction, towards the wheat field.

The live stream cuts away from her then, and I run frantically back to the mentor centre, just in time to see her skittering blindly through the long grass, pursued by the huge boy from 11. He's faster than her and gaining on her, and suddenly the grass is moving. There are creatures there, closing in on both of them. Weaponless, Iovita does the only thing she can and keeps running, squealing as several somethings I can't clearly see attack her ankles. But inexplicably they seem more interested in the boy, and as he fights them off, Iovita keeps running.

She sinks to the ground at the edge of the wheatfield. It's getting close to dusk and she's shivering, and her trouser legs are ripped. Now the danger is passed, she's limping as she tries to find somewhere to sleep, and eventually she finds a thick clump of bushes and crawls inside. It's too dark to see, and I can't send her anything, so I just have to hope she's not too badly hurt.

I don't sleep again that night.

The next morning she's still limping, but she finds some sort of plant that she recognises and wraps them around her ankles. I briefly wonder how my daughter got so good at recognising plants, then remember her teachers always used to praise her phenomenal memory. She's toying with the empty stew can, presumably trying to decide what use she can put it to, when the fire begins. Then she drops it and runs. I vaguely have time to notice she's not limping, and hope that was because of the leaves and not just terror. When Felix puts an arm around my shoulders, I flinch violently. I'd almost forgotten he was there.

When she escapes the fire and falls into an exhausted sleep a mile from the nearest tribute we go back to our room and do the same. It's the first time we've had any time together since the games began. We risk an hour before Felix goes back to watch her.

When I wake up the next morning I am furious that he let me sleep so long, but it turns out the girl from 12 has been keeping everyone occupied. Somehow she's managed to drop a tracker jacker nest on the careers and killed two of them, and the others have staggered back to the cornucopia to tend their injuries. It would be funny, watching them stagger around hallucinating, if not for Iovita. She's been watching, realises what's happening and as soon as they've passed out she slips in and takes two apples. The boy from One is the only one to see her and as he staggers after her with a sword he can barely lift the others don't even realise what's happening.

Once she's clear she climbs a tree and eats her apples. None of the main cameras even spare a moment for her resourcefulness. The next day they alliance is still in pain, but more alert and she doesn't risk taking more food, contenting herself with her water and a couple of wild garlic roots. She's survived a week now.

That evening they begin searching the area again, though they're staggering and still struggling. Iovita takes the opportunity to slip back and take a can of stew and another water bottle. She's got three now, but without purifying tablets she's evidently decided not to risk the pools in the arena. The first two are empty, but she keeps them with her regardless. At night she wraps the thin fabric of the parachute around her hands. The careers find the boy from 10 the following day, just as dawn is breaking. Iovita hears his screams, and I'm glad the cameras aren't on her as she brushes away a tear.

The cycle repeats itself. Steal a little food from the careers, supplement it with whatever she can find in the woods. Walk. Hide. Sleep. Steal. Most of the time she's not even onscreen, and I have to watch our own tribute station to find out what she's doing. It's not much, not interesting, and the more she manages to keep hidden, the better her chances. Except things are about the change. She's snatching a pack of what looks like dried fruit when she hears a sound and swiftly retreats, and all the cameras train onto the girl from 12. I don't understand until she fires the first arrow.

Iovita's still retreating when the explosion hits. She's blown off her feet by the aftershock; she crawls and hides, burrowing down into a trench she's dug beneath a thick clump of bushes. I'm sure she's eating her latest can of stew in there, and I watch as the boy from 3 is killed, as the careers head out hunting – there's only three of them now, which is definitely improving her chances of survival. Night falls, and she must be sleeping. At least she's got a full stomach.

At dawn, she wakes and heads back to survey the carnage.

There's almost nothing left. A knife blade, a tin cup...she takes them, but she's laughing hysterically, and that scares me. It doesn't sound like happiness, it sounds like she's on the verge of a breakdown. She's just lost her main food source, and I start wishing that the rest of them will kill each other quickly so my daughter can come home. Even when the little one from 11 is killed, I'm sorry, but there's a larger part of me that only feels relief that Iovita's one step closer towards getting out of there, because there's only six of them left now.

But then it's time for the Capitol's final betrayal. Because there should be high excitement, with the child of two victors so close to her own victory, but everything revolves around the pair from Twelve. Iovita's teachers are interviewed, my grandmother, Hardie...but none of them get more than thirty seconds of airtime before they cut back to Twelve. Two fares a little better with a pair of tributes still in the running, but Eleven is almost as ignored as we are.

The games continue inexorably, and the cameras can only focus on district 12, the girl seemingly in love with that boy who'd been with the careers to start with and now, once they attacked him, is relying on the girl to keep him alive. I'm just hoping he dies quickly so there'll be one less person to worry about. But everything starts going downhill. The smaller pools start drying up, and even without rationing what water she has, Iovita is clearly struggling and frightened. We still can't send her anything. I go to my arrangement with Swann, who grabs me and smothers me with kisses. Her children run up and hug me, because while the Capitolians have all but forgotten that Iovita is our daughter, they've known me for too long. I said before that I referred to Swann as a friend. I guess she was, because I took her a new photo of my daughter every year. They've got them all hanging up on their hallway. Little Victor, who's just turned four, offers me five credits from his allowance so I can buy sweeties for her. I burst into tears, and rather than begging for sponsor money I just sit there, drinking oversweet tea as we watch the screen.

One person would hardly have been enough to send her something worthwhile anyway, I tell myself. But when I get back I discover 20,000 more credits in the sponsor fund. Swann must have drained her allowance for the month. No new clothes or haircuts for a while. Even that isn't going to buy much, but it'll pay for a litre of water. As I key in the transaction, the prices are raised in the millisecond before my finger touches the "send" button. I scream in frustration.

The next day Iovita finally succumbs to drinking pond water. We tell ourselves that it'll be okay, and for the rest of that day it seems she will be, but that night she's clutching her stomach and shivering. She eats the last strip of dried fruit that she's managed to save, but it comes back up. She spends the following day lying in her shallow shelter, not eating or drinking anything, and I'm frantic, certain this is the beginning of the end.

It's freezing at nights now, but my daughter shivers all the time. I want to send her medicine but there's nothing in the fund that would help; I scan the prices and we could maybe afford a pair of socks, but that's about it. When I hear the announcement for a feast, I shudder. But Iovita has more cunning than even her father credited her with. In the middle of the night, shivering uncontrollably, she creeps out of the bushes and streaks across to the Cornucopia, and there she waits. The moment a table rises with backpacks on it she runs out, grabs hers, and doesn't look back. She doesn't stop until she gets back to her hideaway.

A thin, insulated blanket, a flask of hot broth, and a bar of chocolate. And of course, the backpack, into which she tucks her empty bottles. Wrapped in the blanket, hands swathed in ragged parachute fabric, drinking the broth, no longer shivering, she almost smiles for the first time in days. But I'm horrified, because I can see on the screens that Twelve got medicine for the boy, that the Capitol mean to keep their romance going longer, maybe all the way until the end when they finally have to kill each other. And that likely means the Capitol intend for these games to last awhile yet. Days at the very least; and my daughter doesn't know how to hunt, even if she was strong enough. She's coughing now, and I can't even send her blackcurrant syrup.

She makes her chocolate bar last two days though, spending most of her time wrapped in her blanket when she isn't out foraging for berries or fruit. Her foraging trips are getting shorter and shorter, because the gamemakers have sent a deluge, a rainstorm that soaks everything and brings visibility down to just a few feet. She manages to grab a few mouthfuls, then retreat under a thick clump of bushes where I hope it's at least partly dry. She's losing weight fast.

That night Cato kills Thresh. I watch impassively as they slash at each other. For a while it seems to boy from Eleven will win, because his backpack contained body armour, presumably in case of another encounter with the prairie dog mutts, but he hasn't trained for years like Cato. The boy from two strips him of his armour and dons it himself once he hears the cannon. Iovita sleeps through it all, her breathing ragged and uneven.

Morning brings one good thing, at least. The rains have stopped. The pair from Twelve go out hunting. The girl is stealthy and silent, the boy crashing through the undergrowth like a pack of wild dogs. They pass close enough that Iovita hears, and she's immediately alert, hand over her mouth to suppress a cough as she discerns the direction they're headed in. Then, even more quietly than the Twelve girl, she follows.

The girl hunts, the boy forages. Fruit, nuts, some sort of root I don't recognise but he looks thrilled to find...he leaves them all in a pile on the ground. The split screen going out live across Panem shows him examining a patch of fungi while Iovita slips in. She reaches for the berries, grabs about half – far more than she would have dared earlier in the games – and streaks back into the bushes just as quietly. She settles down with her prize, holding one between finger and thumb...and then she shoves the whole mouthful in at once. She must be starving.

I pull up the list of sponsor gifts and search through them. If I drain all our funds I can afford three plain crackers. It's not much but it's better than nothing, enough to remind her we're still here, still believing in her and waiting for her to come home. I'm just about to hit the button when the screen greys out. I freeze in disbelief then start randomly punching buttons, but nothing works. I start hyperventilating and don't hear the cannon because I'm so desperate to make the screen work, terrified because they only grey out when your tribute dies. I start screaming. I continue screaming as the main screen shows Iovita's emaciated body being lifted by hovercraft. I'm still screaming her name as peacekeepers approach to remove me from my tribute station.


	7. Chapter 7

Haymitch looks up from his station, bleary eyed. "She was your kid?" he asks, shaking his head. He sounds shellshocked.

Felix barrels into the peacekeepers outside, running to reach me, convinced there's been a mistake, that our daughter isn't really dead, that it was some sort of trick. Neither of us can understand, all she did was eat a handful of berries the boy was going to eat anyway. There's screaming and fighting and everything blurs until we are led back to our apartment where we cling to each other, sobbing. Uncomprehending. I no longer care that viewing is mandatory.

Once we've smashed the TV set in our quarters and barricaded ourselves in I half expect to be dragged off by peacekeepers. Maybe some part of me even wants it. But I wake up the next day, a world in which my daughter is no longer alive yet I still exist. I stare at the wall. I try to stop breathing. Felix and I try to console each other, to mourn. But while our minds struggle to comprehend what has happened, our hearts steadfastly refuse.

Somehow we survive another night, clinging to each other. Neither of us have eaten or showered since we were escorted from the centre, though we drank a flask of cold coffee. I ordered it early on, my body on autopilot, knowing that we needed to drink, to stay alive, even as my mind questioned why. When it comes, the knock on the door is shockingly loud, dragging us back to a reality neither of us wants any more. Felix eventually makes it to the door, pushes the trashed sofa aside.

It's Lyme and Brutus. She hugs Felix, a brief touching of no more than a couple of seconds. Brutus crosses to me and awkwardly puts a hand on my shoulder. I haven't moved from where I'm sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. I stare up at them, certain they've come to tell me that boy Peeta, Iovita's killer, is dead, finished off by Cato who's now recovering before starting his new life as Victor. I hope he made it last. I hope it took all night.

"Did you..?"

"No. Cato didn't make it. Twelve won. Both of them." Lyme sits down beside me, holding my hands. She doesn't even look uncomfortable doing it. Brutus strides away, looking like he wants to punch something. My mind works slowly. Both of them?

"It's not fair..." I croak.

Brutus gives in to temptation and punches a hole in the wall. Felix looks up at him, a terrible expression in his eyes as if he's pleading for it all to stop. They stare at each other. They've never been friends, Felix is fifteen years the other's senior, but we're desperate, searching for any kind of comfort. "Drink?" asks Brutus. Something seems to pass between the two men and they leave without another word. I cling to Lyme and scream. I keep screaming until my voice is no more than a harsh whisper and I'm too exhausted to move. For all her formidable reputation, she holds me while my grief is at it's most devastating and never says a word. Nor will I ever mention that I think I saw tears in her own eyes that day.

We take our daughter home in a plain pine box and bury her at the edge of Victors' Village. Its against the rules, but nobody says a word. People gather for the funeral. Friends, acquaintances, family, strangers we've never even met. All of them have a sympathetic word, a sad face, a gentle hand. I want to scream at them all, even the handsome couple who bring their two children along. His face is familiar. Later, I will remember his deaf brother who volunteered a decade earlier.

After twenty two years, Iovita's death is what...not drives us apart, but stops us feeling. We learned how to cope with the knowledge that we were murderers. Dealt with the nightmares, the fear and self-loathing. But nobody ever taught us how to deal with this. I virtually stop eating, spending days staring into space. When my father dies of a heart attack at the age of fifty eight three months later, I have no more tears to shed, and I hate myself even more.

Felix turns to alcohol as a way to numb the pain. By the time the Victory tour slimes it's way into Five, he's a fully fledged alcoholic. I'm a shell held together by sheer force of will wanting revenge on that boy. Hardie, wheelchair bound at 92 years of age, can't offer anything more than hollow words of comfort.

Then the Quarter Quell is announced, and I am determined to go back in. Because I can see what is blindingly obvious - the boy will volunteer again. One way or another, he will have to face me in the arena, and then he will die. Slowly. Painfully. Not a rapid demise through a mouthful of berries, but one in which he has time to regret that he didn't eat the damned things himself before leaving them for my daughter to find.

Hardie is reaped, and I volunteer, much to her fury. She reminds me that I'm not yet forty, half a century younger than her, and that there are far worse ways to go than being cut down from behind with a scythe. She's sure one of the stronger tributes - Brutus or Gloss, maybe - would have been willing to do it for her before she even had to move off her podium. But it's too late.

I don't get to say goodbye to my grandfather. New rules apparently. I'm glad. I wouldn't have been able to lie and say I'd try to come back, even if he was having one of his more lucid days and recognised me. Felix sobers up long enough to agree to my plan, but then finds a bottle of rum on the train and can't resist. He passes out mumbling threats of what he's going to do to Peeta once he catches up with him. I wrap my arms around him and sob. I almost feel something again.

The remake, the parade, they blur into insignificance. Leda tries to tell me about something important, something we have to do, but it doesn't involve killing the boy slowly, so I ignore her. It's the first time we've ever argued. Felix gets up early enough to go to training on the first day, determined to make an effort, if only to see Leda and Tyndareus. He staggers back after lunch, his shirt soiled with vomit. I turn over in bed and pretend to be asleep.

I go down to training on the last day. At the snares station, Cecelia takes my hand and squeezes it.

We each score a three for our meeting with the gamemakers.

Leda slips us each a morphling pill before the live interviews. I don't even remember what I said to Caesar.

It's too bright in the arena, and I can't swim. I stand, impotent and furious, on my platform, desperately wanting to kill the boy I can just see far over to my right. I can only just see Felix as he launches himself into the water and paddles towards the girl, though she's already running toward the cornucopia. I'm still frozen to the spot, crouching down to touch the water, wondering if I can keep afloat long enough to get to dry land and fight. Felix has managed; I watch him stagger up the long rocky outcropping that leads to the cornucopia, but even as he gets there...

He's gone as well. The first to die, killed by Finnick Odair and I'm so numb I can't even scream. The last person I love has gone and now I have nothing left to live for. I don't think as I throw myself into the water. I welcome the waves as they close over my head. I allow myself to breathe in...but I cannot drown. Foolish to think the gamemakers would allow something so comforting, so simple.

I am washed ashore, but make no effort to move. I lay on the shore, staring out at the cornucopia, waiting to die. I stand, my legs weak and shaking, and I fall again almost immediately, hacking up seawater. So I crawl to the shade of the trees and lie there.

That night, I see his face in the sky, followed by Tyndareus. I wonder how he died. Leda is still alive, and I think about finding her but for what? She killed less people in her games than I did. I get to my feet and stagger into the trees. At least I have a plan now. I begin walking in what I think is a straight line, flinching when I hear a cannon and then, later, another. I don't even think of who it might have been, other than hoping it's not Peeta. I don't want to be denied the chance to finish him myself. I'm desperately thirsty but there's no water to be found, and no sponsors to...

A parachute floats down beside me. I squat down and stare at it, not trusting that it's really there. When it doesn't vanish or turn into something that attacks me I reach for it, cautiously, and unwrap...a syringe of morphling. The sight of it breaks something inside me and I start to sob, because it seems like a cruel twist of fate that my first gift in an arena should also be my last. Then I remember that Tullius, acting as mentor for both Five and Six in Hardie's absence, wouldn't have thought of this on his own, and Leda must have told him what to do. It's her last gift to me.

I make up my mind to find her, or die trying. If there's two of us against Peeta we've got a better chance of killing him. I realise at some point that I'm staggering in circles, and I'm dizzy, and my head aches. "I hate needles" I rasp to myself as I take out the syringe and administer the morphling. It's a good, strong dose for one who isn't used to it. Soon I'm staggering more, and the trees turn from ordinary greens to an iridescent rainbow of beauty. I can barely remember what I'm doing, though I know I'm looking for someone. Felix? Am I looking for Felix? My heart soars, and it makes sense, because who else would I be looking for?

There's a crashing sound somewhere above me, and I stop, confused. There's something shimmering and wild crashing through the rainbow trees, something big and fierce that I can't outrun. But then I think I see Felix riding the crest of the wave – it's water, then? - and he's holding hands with Iovita. He's teaching her to swim! She'll be safe, we'll all be safe...

I scream in triumph as I'm lifted high into the air by the force of the water, the morphling showing me my daughter's smiling face, holding hands with my husband as they welcome me home.


	8. Epilogue

Tullius stared at the screen as the wave came. He'd been watching ever since the games started, just like Mama Leda had told him. He'd felt sad when Felix had died, and sadder still when Tyndareus died a few minutes later when Cashmere threw a knife straight at his head and he fell into the water. He remembered that Mama Leda had said, 'send us a syringe of morphling every night" and he did, sent one to Mama Leda and one to Cyra like he'd been told. He cried when Mama Leda died, but at least she'd had the morphling, it wouldn't hurt so much. He kept watching until Cyra used hers, too, and then he felt better, because now nothing was going to hurt her, either.

Then Cyra's screen greyed out as the water carried her away, and he knew that she too was gone. The last of his adopted family.

Tullius turned and walked out of the mentoring centre, head bowed. Nobody paid him much attention as he walked out of the complex and into one of the less attractive bars. So nobody saw when he left after one drink, slipping out through the back exit and down little-travelled streets. Because Tullius wasn't clever, but Mama Leda had told him what to do. That after they died - and they _were_ going to die, but he wasn't to cry, just because life had been unfair to them didn't mean that he couldn't still have a chance - he was to go and find his old stylist. The one that the Capitol had rejected.

So he went to Tigris, carrying the uniform of the peacekeeper he'd quietly strangled when they'd asked what he was doing skulking down the alley, and she remade him. Just like before his games, and after his games, and for his Victory tour. And then he stepped onto a train, one that went a long way, and he ignored the orders to make sure there were no survivors because this wasn't a game, this was real, because Mama Leda had told him, Leda who he used to call mother but who wasn't really his mother who was gone now. And he didn't shoot people, he just hit them a little bit with his gun and then dragged them away from the burning buildings after they fell over so they could wake up later.

And Tullius took off his peacekeeper uniform and crawled under a fence that wasn't electrified anymore, and he found his own little alliance there. A little girl of about six and her even smaller brother who had followed him from the flames. Terrified, sobbing, covered with filth and cut by flying debris. Tullius picked them up, one under each arm, and carried them until he found the cave. It was nice and quiet there, and there was wood to collect and fallen trees he could drag in to use as chairs. He even remembered how to start a fire, and later, he found a stream and worked out how to catch fish. The little girl liked playing mother and trying to cook for them, and together they waited until the peacekeepers had gone and it was safe. By then Rigg, the little boy, was calling him Papa. Tullius liked that name.

And they went back to crawl under the fence again, but now it was gone, and there were people who were kind and gave them all new clothes and found them a place to live. And the kind people pretended not to recognise the big, slow, handsome young man who smiled and helped build the new fruit canning factory and could lift hods of bricks that were twice as heavy as anyone else. And sometimes, on those days when he stared into space with the ghost of a memory in his eyes, they just let him stand there staring, and eventually, it might be minutes or hours or maybe even days later, he remembered where he was. Or sometimes it was because Rosie or Rigg came and tugged on his hand, because they were his family now, they all lived in the bright new community home together even though Tullius was a grown up. And then he would remember that he was safe now.

In his more lucid moments he wondered whether they minded that he forgot things, or if they thought he was still playing a game. It wasn't a very good game, but that didn't matter. Because there are many worse games to play.

* * *

A/N Thank you for reading! This story of District Five (and Six) appeared in my head while I was walking to work one day and wouldn't go away. I hope you've enjoyed it. Tullius may turn up again at some point, I think...


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